F 891 

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1911 


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JOHN 


HARTE MSGRAW 




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A TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY 

embodying addresses delivered at various ceremo- 
nies, and resolutions adopted by civic, educational 
and commercial organizations of the Pacific Coast 



PUBLISHED UNDER DIRECTION OF 

SEATTLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 
SEATTLE, 1911 



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printers : 

Lowman & Hanford Co. 

seattle, wash. 



6 

NOV 3 I 



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<E. 3SL i attMl, ^*rr*targ nf ilje 
&?attl* (Etjamter af C&amrnm* 

/IMMEDIATELY following the death of John H. McGraw, 
a demand arose for the preservation, — for the informa- 
tion of future generations, — of a record of some of the 
more important achievements in his career, particularly those 
which have a direct bearing upon the development of this City 
and State. In response to this demand the Seattle Chamber of 
Commerce has undertaken to assemble the addresses deliv- 
ered and tributes paid to his memory after his death and 
incident to the various public and private ceremonies which 
followed. 

In a volume such as this it was found impossible to embody 
all the tributes written and spoken; of necessity the contents 
are limited to those addresses and resolutions which the editors 
felt reflected best the characteristics that endeared the man 
to thousands of people throughout the Pacific Northwest and 
made his name synonymous with the struggles, development 
and achievements of the State of Washington and City of 
Seattle. The accompanying papers were in each instance pre- 
pared by men who knew him intimately throughout practi- 
cally the whole of his career as a citizen of this common- 
wealth, and who have sought to mete out to the man and his 
memory that which is his due, guarding against both fulsome 
praise and exaggerated statement. 



In proof of their appreciation of his worth, friends and 
admirers of Governor McGraw have contributed a sum of 
money sufficient to provide for a bronze statute of him, which 
the eminent artist, Eichard E. Brooks, has undertaken to 
produce. The first of the citizens of Seattle to be thus per- 
petually honored was himself active and helpful in promot- 
ing the enterprise successfully accomplished whereby Seattle 
secured the treasure of the Brooks Statue of William H. 
Seward, the statesman to whom the greatest credit is due 
for the acquisition by our nation of Alaska. That historic 
event has been the most potent circumstance contributing to 
the upbuilding and prosperity of Seattle. The appropriate- 
ness in sequence and in manner of providing this new work 
of art to commemorate the name of John H. McGraw will 
become more and more evident as the years go by, and the 
completion of the project for which he labored so long and 
so earnestly demonstrates that, following the acquisition of 
Alaska by Seward, the realization of Governor McGraw's 
dream in the construction of the Lake Washington Canal is 
the next accomplishment, in point of importance and time, 
for which one individual is pre-eminently entitled to credit 
that has a vital bearing on the ultimate destiny of Seattle as 
a world city. A strong mentality, invincible courage, and 
determined individuality were so combined in his career as 
to render him the logical leader in seeking to bring about 
the realization of this great enterprise, for the accomplishment 
of which he devoted twenty-five years of his life. 

Probably no figure in the public eye since Washington be- 
came a commonwealth was a more striking example of the 
pioneer who did not outlive his usefulness. He possessed those 
traits which readily adapted themselves to changing conditions, 
and to the day of his death he was one of the most efficient 
workers in the development and commercial expansion of this 
City and State. His wise administration as President of the 
Seattle Chamber of Commerce, over which he presided from 
June, 1905, to June, 1909, gave to that institution a prestige 
which repeatedly has made its influence felt in the halls of 
Congress and the various government departments in matters 

6 



concerning the vital welfare of this City and State. Both 
in official and in private life he bore himself with such dig- 
nity and courage as to gain the respect of all true minded 
men. Strong convictions in his political career made him 
some enemies, as all such characters do; he also made many 
strong friendships. His chief characteristics, as recognized 
by his friends, were a strong mentality, invincible courage, 
generosity and rugged honesty. All these traits, developed 
in him to a marked degree, equipped him to meet any situa- 
tion with which he was confronted. How well he met and 
grappled with life's problems is known to every person fa- 
miliar with his career from the time he faced an uninviting 
world, a friendless boy, as a car driver in the streets of San 
Francisco, until an appreciative public bestowed upon him 
the highest honor within its gift both in politics and com- 
mercial life. 

Though his position as President of the Seattle Chamber 
of Commerce afforded him many opportunities to advance his 
private interests, it is a matter of common knowledge that he 
not only refused to take any personal advantage of such op- 
portunities, but consistently declined to even accept reim- 
bursement for money expended from his private purse in pro- 
moting the interests of this City. He spent a considerable 
portion of his time in Washington City each winter urging 
legislation in which this City was vitally concerned, and his 
influence in promoting the Alaska- Yukon-Pacific Exposition 
and Lake Washington Canal appropriation measures, under 
circumstances which seemed for a time to preclude recogni- 
tion at the hands of Congress, testify to the persistency and 
force of his personality. 

Immediately following his death, editorial writers through- 
out the State referred to him as Seattle's most useful citizen. 
There is none who has challenged the justice of this tribute. 
There are many who have come to realize it since his death. 
A knowledge of usefulness to his City, State and friends to 
him furnished its own reward. 



battle Glijamfo r of (Eommero 



Seattle, Washington, 
June 28 ; 1910. 

Jk T THE regular meeting of the Seattle 

LA Chamber of Commerce on June 28, 1910, 

** -*■ the following resolution, introduced by Hon. 

E. C. Hughes and Hon. C. H. Hanford, was adopted 

by a unanimous rising vote: 

"At three score years, in the prime of his mental 
and physical vigor, at the summit of his earthly 
career, John H. McGraw is dead. 

"As a servant of the people, from chief of police 
of this city to the highest office in the gift of the 
people of the State, he was faithful to his public 
trusts and firm and fearless in upholding and en- 
forcing the law. Always patriotic in his impulses, 
wise in his counsels, and generous in his friend- 
ships, he never compromised with duty nor with 
the rights of the people. 

"To the service of this Chamber, both as Trustee 
and as President, he gave his time unsparingly and 
unselfishly. 

"He loved the city of his adoption, and was ever 
ready to devote his energy and means to her service 
at whatever sacrifice to his personal welfare, and 



of him it may be justly said that he was her fore- 
most citizen. 

"Therefore, Be It Resolved, That in the judg- 
ment of this Chamber a suitable monument should 
be erected to his memory by the people of our city. 

"That by his death our city has lost a patriot and 
a friend, and this Chamber its most useful member. 

"That the deepest sympathy of the members be 
extended to his family, and that they be furnished 
with a copy of these resolutions. 

"J. D. LOWMAN, 
"President. 

"C. B. YANDELL, 

"Secretary." 



10 



loari of Sir? rtora 

Jtrat Naiumal Sank of i>eattk 



Seattle, Washington, 
June 28, 1910. 

A T A meeting of the Board of Directors of 
ZI the First National Bank held on the 28th 
-* -*■ day of June, 1910, the following resolution 
was adopted by a unanimous vote of the Board : 

"John H. McGraw, who for more than twenty 
years has faithfully performed his duties as an 
officer of this Bank in the various positions of Vice- 
President, President and Director, and to whose 
abilities, strict integrity, and conscientious per- 
formance of those duties the growth and prosperity 
of this Bank are largely due, died in this city on 
June 23, 1910. It seems proper for the remaining 
members of the Board of Directors to perpetuate 
on the records of this Bank some expression of his 
work for this institution, of the deep personal loss 
we are conscious of in his passing away, and of our 
sympathy with the surviving members of his family. 

"Therefore, Be It Unanimously Resolved, That in 
the death of Governor McGraw the officers of this 
Bank feel that one of the highest and best types of 
American citizenship, one full of vigorous mental 
virtues, honest, able, courageous with a courage of 
the highest order, yet kindly, sympathetic, generous, 



11 



warm-hearted and lovable, has passed from our daily 
lives, yet leaving, with a keen consciousness of the 
great loss thus sustained by our State, our city, and 
by this institution and ourselves, as his friends and 
associates, a high and honorable record as a man, a 
citizen and official, well worthy of lasting regard 
and emulation. 

"Resolved, That after this slight tribute is placed 
upon the records of this Bank a copy thereof be 
furnished to the surviving son and daughter of 
Governor McGraw. 

"M. A. ARNOLD, 

"President. 

"THOMAS BORDEAUX, 
"MAURICE McMICKEN, 
"W. D. HOFIUS, 
"PATRICK McCOY, 
"J. A. HALL, 
"D. H. MOSS, 
"O. D. FISHER, 
"H. W. ROWLEY, 

"Directors." 



12 



Associate (Eljamhrra of (&am- 
mmz of % parifir ©oast 



San Francisco, California, 
July 1, 1910. 

y y TTHEREAS, The officers of the Associated 
I /I / Chambers of Commerce of the Pacific 
* ^ Coast have been informed of the death, 

on June 23, 1910, of Honorable John H. McGraw, 
former president of this organization, a man promi- 
nent in the affairs of the Pacific Coast, a citizen who 
has devoted much of his time, energy and means to 
the development of the Pacific Coast and the promo- 
tion of many vital undertakings concerning the wel- 
fare, happiness and prosperity of our people. 

Resolved, That in the removal, by death, of so 
prominent a factor in the affairs of the Pacific Coast 
as the deceased we have lost a staunch supporter, 
one devoted to the upbuilding of all work tending 
to promote the welfare of this section of the United 
States and the betterment of its people. 

Be it further resolved, That we but express the 
sentiment of every member of this organization 
when we say that the Pacific Coast has sustained 
an almost irreparable loss. Always patriotic in his 
impulses, wise in his counsels and generous in his 
friendships, the Associated Chambers of Commerce, 
in particular, has sustained a loss which it will be 
difficult to replace, and finally 



13 



Be It Resolved, That as a testimonial of our re- 
gard and esteem for the first president and one of 
the chief factors in the promotion of this organiza- 
tion, it is ordered that these resolutions be incor- 
porated in the minutes and that the Secretary be 
directed to send to the family a copy thereof, with 
an expression of our sincere sympathy in the time 
of their bereavement. 

WILLIS H. BOOTH, President. 
C. W. BURKS, Secretary. 



14 



Itafttfer GUub 



"WHEREAS, Almighty God, in His infinite wis- 
dom, has removed by death Honorable John H. 
McGraw, and 

WHEREAS, in his death the State of Washing- 
ton has lost its foremost citizen, and the City of 
Seattle its most loyal, tireless and effective public 
servant, and this Club its beloved President: 

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the Board 
of Trustees of the Rainier Club, that there be and 
is hereby extended to the bereaved family of our 
late President our profound sympathy, and this 
testimonial of the love and esteem of all its mem- 
bers, as well as of their keen appreciation of his 
tireless devotion to the Club's welfare. 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that a copy of 
these resolutions be forwarded to his family by the 
Secretary and also spread at length on the Records 
of the Board of Trustees." 



15 



iflrottt (Ear Srtu?r to (gowrttor 

Att Example to Ammran f nutty 

A ©rtbttt? to tfj* ifett? lEx-dlntimtnr Jtoljtt 1^. itrGkaro 
of Hajatfingtim 

iSg (Eijarlra ®. <Emtiro*r 

/yf HE LIFE of John H. McGraw, ex-Governor of Wash- 
I ington, who died in Seattle recently, is an inspiration 

-^- to American youth and an example to American man- 

hood unapproached since the death, last year, of Governor 
Johnson, of Minnesota. He died the foremost citizen of his 
State, more loved and more mourned than any citizen who 
had previously died in its confines. Condolences were received 
from the President of the United States, Cabinet ministers, the 
Speaker of the House, United States Senators and eminent 
citizens and journalists, even to Henry Watterson, differing 
so radically in political belief with the dead man. His burial 
was simple and private, under his instructions, but memorial 
services followed that were the most touching ever held in the 
Pacific Northwest. 

Mr. McGraw was born in Penobscot County, Maine, fifty- 
nine years ago, of the most humble parentage. His father 
died when he was two years old and some years later his 
mother remarried. His stepfather was harsh to him and his 
life very hard. A few months at a country school was the 
total of his educational opportunities. So poor was the 
family that the boy had to wear an old pair of his stepfather's 
boots, and one day at school this sensitive boy suffered the 
humiliation of being reprimanded by the teacher for being out 
of line when his class was toeing a crack in the floor, the teacher 
being unconscious that he was squarely toeing the mark, but 
was thrown out of line by the size of his boots. At fourteen 
he began making his own living at any honest toil. At twenty 
he was conducting a small country store, but lost his meager 

17 



savings in the panic of 1873. He then married the girl of his 
choice and bravely struck out for the Pacific Coast. 

A few years ago, when the writer was walking down one of 
the streets of San Francisco with him one evening, Mr. McGraw 
paused and said, "The first employment I had on the Pacific 
coast was driving a bobtail horse car on this street." Later 
he went to Seattle and secured a position as clerk in a hotel 
in the then small frontier town. Later he became part pro- 
prietor, but the place went up in flames and he was again 
penniless. He took employment as a policeman, was later 
elected town marshal and chief of police. He made his impress 
upon the community and was elected sheriff and later re-elected. 
During his second term disorder and riot broke out in the 
Pacific Northwest, owing to an anti-Chinese agitation. The 
Chinese were forcibly driven out of Tacoma and other cities 
and armed mobs ordered them out of Seattle. There was riot 
and bloodshed, but Sheriff McGraw met the crisis fearlessly 
and boldly and law and order prevailed, although United 
States troops had to be called in to accomplish it. The anti- 
Chinese agitation was so powerful that Sheriff McGraw went 
down to defeat at the next election. He had been devoting 
all his leisure to the study of the law and was later admitted 
to the bar and became a member of the most important law 
firm in the Territory, his associates being an ex-chief justice 
of the Territory and the present justice of the Federal court. 
In the meantime the anti-Chinese sentiment had subsided and 
his old friends and neighbors insisted that he accept a vin- 
dication at their hands, and he sacrificed his law practice and 
was renominated and re-elected sheriff. 

At the end of this term he became president of the First 
National Bank of Seattle. Possessing a wonderfully virile 
and masterful mind, a love for all that is good and true and a 
charming, whole-hearted personality, he had a real love for 
politics, always without personal ambition and always for the 
good of his city, his county, State and nation. He easily be- 
came the Republican leader of his State, and twice, when he 
was seeking to elect his candidate, refused absolute offers of 
the United States senatorship for himself. Finally, in the 

18 



heat of a State convention, he was forced entirely against his 
wishes to accept the nomination for Governor and was elected. 
His administration covered the stormy period of the panic be- 
ginning in 1893 and was a monument to his statesmanship and 
wisdom, but upon retiring from office he found that his fortune 
had been swept away during his devotion to public duties, by 
panic and embezzlement by trusted friends and employes. Sur- 
rendering every asset to his creditors, he outfitted for two 
years and struck out for Alaska to again seek his fortune. 
He donned rough clothes and worked as hard as any common 
miner in the frozen north. He returned moderately successful, 
thousands of old friends standing on the Seattle docks for 
hours to welcome him home, paid every dollar with interest and 
died worth a comfortable competency. His later years were 
devoted to business, while always giving largely of his time 
to the good of his city and State. He was recognized as its 
foremost citizen and, more than any other man, achieved for 
Washington its enviable position on matters of national policies 
as well as its material progress. 

He was president of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce re- 
peatedly, until last year he declined re-election, and at the 
time of his death was president of the Rainier Club, the lead- 
ing social club of Seattle. In everything he was a leader, 
always leading absolutely unselfishly. Such a man naturally 
has enemies, but a distinguished divine who paid a touching 
tribute to him at the memorial services said, "What first at- 
tracted me to him was the enemies he made"; and perhaps 
the finest tribute paid his memory by any one was expressed 
in a set of resolutions by the Democratic central committee 
of Seattle, and he more than any other ten men had encom- 
passed the defeat of the Democracy in his State for a quarter 
of a century. 

Governor McGraw was a deep reader, perfectly in touch 
with the best literature of the world, a true statesman and 
patriot, a lover of mankind, a born leader as he was a born 
gentleman and he never had a mean or sordid thought. No 
one who has ever felt the clasp of his hand or the charm of 
his smile will forget it or him. — Leslie's Weekly. 

19 



Addresses He Itumfo at ilemnnal &?t- 
twe, tylb #tmhag, June 2fi, 1910 

2Jg Ifatt. <B. % ^attforfc 

/yy HE BUILDING of cities and commonwealths imposes 
I hard tasks to be accomplished only by toil and ex- 

-*■ penditure of vast sums of money and requires wise 

foresight, intelligent leadership, energy, perseverance, and 
unity of purpose permeating the people en masse. The actu- 
ating power by which these forces are generated is generally 
called "Public Spirit." It is a genuine power though invisible 
and beyond human control. It comprehends wisdom, pride, 
hopefulness, ambition, courage, energy, zeal, prudence, benevo- 
ience, self-denial, love of home, patriotism and aspiration 
towards the ideal. It operates upon the hearts and intellect- 
uality of men and finds expression through the press, the 
pulpit, the forum, the schools, the political rostrum and all 
civic and social organizations, and the daily intercourse of 
individuals, but it needs and must have always the fostering 
care of a few robust, active, talented men and women. In 
every community the industrial and commercial prosperity, 
the tendency towards the highest plane of civilized life mani- 
fest in improved streets, in architecture, in parks and beautiful 
homes, and in the degree of general happiness and righteous- 
ness of the people, reflect and gauge the activities of its most 
prominent and public-spirited citizens. Therefore the best 
asset with which a city, or state, can be endowed is — leader- 
ship by individuals of noble character. And when such a 
leader dies the entire community of which he was a part feels 
the rod of severe affliction. From the time of its foundation, 
Seattle has been greatly blessed in having citizens of the best 
type as leaders in its business and social life, and from pioneer 
days until now the community has been frequently called to 
mourn for the removal by death of one after another of those 

20 



who have commanded the confidence and held the affections 
of those who have engaged in the work of building and beauti- 
fying this city. 

Three score years have passed since the natural advantages 
of this location as a site for a large commercial city arrested 
the attention of an adventurous youth who afterwards became 
a citizen of Seattle. He was the herald of civilization in this 
region and his lonely ramble was the beginning. The progress 
which has been made justifies pride in the multitude of people 
who now claim Seattle as their home city, and measures the 
honor and reverence due to the lamented ones who have spent 
the best and last years of their lives in making this city what 
it is. The names of many of them are cherished in memory 
and will be perpetuated in history for they have impressed 
permanently upon this country, marks of their virtues. We 
have assembled at this time to pay a tribute of respect to one 
of them, the one most pre-eminent among the leaders. Gov- 
ernor John H. McGraw worked for more than thirty years with 
vigor and enthusiasm for the welfare of the city and state which 
he ardently loved. He had the ruggedness of character which 
endurance of hardships incident to the life of an American 
country boy tends to develop. He was earnest and honest, 
genial and generous; he had a bright mind broadened by a 
general knowledge of literature acquired by deep study and 
by the experiences of an active life. He had executive and 
business capacity enlarged by experience and close observance 
of the manners and conduct of people of all classes and con- 
ditions of life with whom he mingled. He was a genuine 
American patriot. He was a wise counsellor, a true friend, 
and devoted husband and a loving parent. His nature was 
combative and while he delighted to aid those persons and 
causes with whom he was in accord, he was forceful in op- 
posing his adversaries, the cordiality of his friendships was 
warmly reciprocated, and his manliness commanded, ever, the 
respect of his opponents. He was never slothful, nor given 
to indulgence of the passions of envy and jealousy, and while 
he was thrifty and prosperous, he willingly devoted a share 
of his time and energies to work necessary to promote public 

21 



interests, without compensation other than the satisfaction of 
being useful. The community depended upon him and in all 
public enterprises he was called to participate, or if not called, 
he volunteered. The phrase "Useful Citizen" describes him 
as he was known and recognized. He was not infallible and 
he knew it, being conscious of his own infirmities he profited 
by experience and his own errors made him charitable in the 
consideration which he gave to the errors and trespasses of 
others, and so with advancing years, conscientious self-im- 
provement, charity and humility ennobled his character. Dur- 
ing several years of his life he held official positions of trust 
and responsibility, and in all of his official career he performed 
his duties with strict fidelity and efficiency, but in later years 
he preferred to occupy the independent position of a private 
citizen, without shirking the obligations of good citizenship. 
Usefulness to his neighbors and his country, brought its own 
reward, for he enjoyed the consciousness of being a useful 
citizen. His life work is finished and its record admonishes 
his co-workers who survive to continue to be diligent during 
the remaining time for usefulness and thus to emulate his 
example. Bather than grieve for the loss which must be felt, 
we should be grateful for the benefits resulting from his well 
spent life. In remembering him, gratitude should overwhelm 
grief and we should thank God for having given the life of 
John H. McGraw to our city, our State, and our country. 



ly IE. 01. ^v^vj^tB 

^THOETLY before his death, Governor McGraw asked me 
i ^ to convey this last request : 

*^J "Give me a private burial — I want no public demon- 

stration." 

The sentiment which prompted this request is thus strikingly 
expressed in the language of Edward Everett: "When I am 
dead no pageant train shall waste their sorrow at my bier." 

Throughout his entire life he had unfalteringly faced its 
toils and struggles, deeming them but a part of the necessary 
course of human events. That his life had been full of stirring 

22 



incidents ; that he had been called upon to solve difficult prob- 
lems; to assume and discharge grave and important private 
and public trusts; and that duty and necessity had often re- 
quired of him the exhibition of courage and heroism, both 
moral and physical, whether in lowly or in exalted place, were 
to him mere circumstances in the little part he felt his life 
had played in the destiny of the human race. He was essen- 
tially modest. Vaingloriousness in others was offensive to 
him, and he shrank from even the appearance of it in himself. 
To the demands of his city or his commonwealth he had always 
responded promptly, and, when occasion required, with all the 
virile force of his rugged and masterful nature — not for 
notoriety or fame, but because his imperious and impulsive 
soul was essentially patriotic. To him the call of duty was 
the voice of God; and in its performance he reckoned himself 
not the commander but the private; not the master but the 
servant. He felt that the simple discharge of duty was its 
own sufficient reward. And so, as he expressed this last re- 
quest, already conscious of the touch of the infinite hand, the 
achievements of the three score years of his life seemed to 
him but part performance of duty's command. By this request 
he was unconsciously giving expression to the inherent modesty 
and simplicity of his nature. To me, as a friend who loved 
him for all the qualities that made up his individuality, for 
the combination of virtue and fault in him — who loved him 
because he was so human — his request is a command. Yet 
this command should not be misconstrued. Literally it was 
fulfilled when on yesterday his ashes were modestly laid away 
in their eternal resting place. 

This memorial exercise, provided that naught be set down 
in exaggeration, is not a disregard of his request. We owe 
a duty to ourselves and to humanity, and if aught of benefit 
to ourselves or our fellowmen can flow from this expression 
of our respect and love for the memory and character of the 
dead, or from a consideration of his achievements and his 
virtues, I gladly contribute my part. 

Washington Irving has well said: "The sorrow for the 
dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced 

23 



* * * the love which survives the tomb is one of the 
noblest attributes of the soul." And so we are assembled 
here in expression of this sorrow for the dead, to pay this 
our tribute of the love which survives the tomb; and in def- 
erence to his wishes and to the lofty sentiments he entertained, 
may it so be that this memorial tribute shall be rather to 
relieve our sorrow and to ennoble our hearts than to glorify 
the memory of the dead. 

From the events and the achievements of his life, let us 
draw the lesson they offer to us of the better fulfillment of 
our own destiny while we yet live. 

Let us briefly review and analyze them, not alone for the 
lessons they afford, but that we may learn from them what 
remains of public good for us to accomplish, which he at- 
tempted, but which death cut short before the fullness of its 
achievement. 

Governor McGraw was born in Penobscot County, State of 
Maine, on October 4th, 1850. He was descended of Irish 
ancestry and was of humble birth; his only heritage being a 
vigorous body and mind endowed with the temperament and 
impulses characteristic of the best of the race from which he 
sprang. 

At two years of age, by the death of his father, he became 
an orphan, and at fourteen was cast upon his own resources. 
His early education was limited to the few months which he 
attended country schools, before the early age at which he 
embarked for himself upon the storm-tossed sea of life. The 
severe experiences of his early struggles rapidly matured him. 
At twenty he was a man not only in stature, but in intellect, 
and at this period he embarked in business with his brother 
in the conduct of a small country store. His adult life was 
measured by two score years, and its events naturally divide 
this brief period of his active life into two equal parts. 

The first period from twenty to forty was comparatively 
humble. In it he lived the life and performed the achieve- 
ments which are possible to every energetic, ambitious, whole- 
some and hopeful American citizen, no matter how humble his 
origin. It may be briefly told, and who shall say but after all 

24 






it is not the more prolific period of his life in the usefulness 
of its public lesson. 

After four years of uneventful struggle, his mercantile busi- 
ness succumbed to the disastrous reverses of the panic of '73, 
well remembered by the older of my hearers. Undismayed 
by financial depression and business disaster, he obeyed the 
call of his youthful love and wedded May L. Kelley on October 
12, 1874, who bore him a son and daughter, and whose death 
in July, 1907, he has survived by less than three years. 

In July, 1876, he came to San Francisco where he accepted 
the first honorable employment which offered, as the driver of 
a horse-car. In October of that year he migrated to the State 
of Washington, locating in the then village of Seattle, which 
became his permanent home. And thenceforth the Evergreen 
State of his adoption inspired in him more love and devotion 
than the always loved and remembered Evergreen State of 
his birth. 

He first obtained employment as a clerk in a hotel, and 
later as the part-proprietor of another. In 1878 when disaster 
again overtook him and his hotel was destroyed by fire, 
obedient to his first duty (the duty of husband and father) 
he sought and obtained the first available employment — as 
one of the four policemen of Seattle. In 1879 he was elected 
City Marshal, and was thereupon chosen by the council as 
Chief of Police, being twice re-elected to the place. In 1882 
he was elected Sheriff of King County, and was re-elected in 
1884. During the latter term, because of the anti-Chinese 
agitation then prevalent upon the Pacific Coast, there oc- 
curred a period of lawlessnes and disorder which resulted in 
a declaration of military law by the then Governor of the 
Territory of Washington. During this period, as the peace 
officer of the City of Seattle, in the face of popular clamor 
and disapproval, he devoted all the power of his masterful 
intellect and will, and his wonderfully vigorous body, to the 
maintenance of law and order, unhesitatingly exposing him- 
self to every personal danger. In him patriotism was stronger 
than the sense of fear or the instinct of self-preservation. 
To him the banner of liberty meant nothing unless upon it 

25 



were inscribed the law. He did his duty simply and fear- 
lessly, but in so doing he fell before the fevered pulse of 
popular clamor, and was defeated for re-election in the fall 
of 1886. 

Kealizing the disadvantages and the obstacles to a life of 
usefulness arising from the meagerness of his early education, 
and prompted by a natural thirst for knowledge, he had for 
several years devoted his spare hours to reading and study. 
During his incumbency of the sheriff's office he had studied 
law, and, upon the expiration of his last term, was admitted 
to the bar. In 1887 he formed a law partnership with ex- 
Chief Justice of the Territorial Supreme Court Hon. Roger 
S. Greene, and with Hon. C. H. Hanford, now of the United 
States District Bench. In the fall of 1888, urged by his 
friends and impelled by the conviction that his re-election 
to the office of Sheriff, in view of the circumstances of his 
former defeat, would be a public vindication of the supremacy 
of law over disorder and violence, and would thus promote 
the public good, he consented to abandon the legal profession 
and again become a candidate for re-election. He was re- 
elected by an overwhelming majority. The duties of this 
office, under the then existing law, involved many responsi- 
bilities, and carried with them not only the usual duties of 
the peace officer of the county, but those of tax collector as 
well. In the meantime he had become interested in the First 
National Bank, and in 1890 was elected its President. 

Thus, at forty, he had risen from obscurity to moderate 
affluence. From humble beginnings, always willing to lay 
his hand to any honorable employment, prompt to seize the 
opportunities afforded, he had steadily risen until he became 
the head of a national bank. Beginning without educational 
advantage, he had acquired a sound, fundamental training 
in the law, and a liberal acquaintance with history and litera- 
ture. May it not be justly said that, after all, this period of 
his life offers the most useful lesson and affords the best ex- 
ample to the young and ambitious American citizens who 
begin life with naught but their brain and their brawn? He 
loved the common people of America ; he believed in them ; he 

26 



regarded himself as one of them. And if, in his modesty, 
he could have believed that the achievements of any portion 
of his life could be an inspiration to such as these, — to lead 
them onward and upward — his cup would have been full. 
To such as these the first period of the active life of Governor 
McGraw splendidly illustrates the possibilities of American 
citizenship. But as an object lesson it can only bring fruition 
to such as believe with him in the dignity of labor, the exalta- 
tion of duty and the supremacy of law. 

The second score of years of the adult life of Governor 
McGraw marked a radical departure from the events of the 
years which had preceded. They opened to him new fields of 
duty and of conquest. His were no longer to be the ordinary 
fields of private life and enterprise. By the inscrutable plans 
of Him who controls the course of human destiny, it had been 
decreed that John H. McGraw was to be a servant of the peo- 
ple; a builder of the community and the commonwealth in 
which he lived; a maker of history. From thenceforth his 
services were largely devoted to the public, and the principal 
events of his life are well known to my hearers and to all 
students of the history of our City and State. It is unim- 
portant, therefore, that they should be now reviewed except 
so far as necessary to illustrate his character and personal 
attributes. 

Upon the admission of the State into the Union, Governor 
McGraw took an active part in the election of our first 
United States Senators, John B. Allen and Watson 0. Squire, 
thus first impressing the marked traits of his personality 
upon the larger community, the State. 

In 1891, at the expiration of the short term, Senator Squire 
was a candidate for re-election. Against him was presented 
as a candidate, by the City of Tacoma, the Honorable W. H. 
Calkins, an ex-Congressman, a man of pre-eminent ability and 
striking personality. In the struggle for supremacy the issue 
was to depend, as in all great contests, upon the brains and 
energy, the masterfulness and skill of leadership. Here, un- 
sought by him, was opened a field for the exercise of these 
distinguishing traits of Governor McGraw. A born general, 

27 



a natural leader of men, borne forward by the irresistible logic 
of events, he became the victorious leader in that contest; 
and thus was his measure taken by all who were active in the 
public and political life of the State. 

For many years it had been the ambitious dream and hope 
of the people of Seattle that Lake Washington might be con- 
nected by a canal with Puget Sound, and thus be made a 
great fresh water harbor. This project was believed to be 
one of great importance, not only to the City, but to the 
State and the Nation, and to the commerce of the world. 
Earnest efforts were made to secure congressional recognition 
and appropriation for the undertaking, and at the King County 
Convention, held for the election of delegates to the State 
Convention, in the summer of 1892, under the leadership of 
Governor McGraw, resolutions were adopted looking to the 
accomplishment of this end and demanding its recognition 
before the State Convention. King County had no candidate 
for Governor, being willing to forego important recognition 
on the State ticket to secure the adoption of the canal plank 
in the platform of the party. Governor McGraw was the 
natural and inevitable leader in this contest — a contest which 
developed local conflicts and strife throughout the State. As 
often occurs in political contests, the unexpected happened. 
Along with sufficient numerical strength in the convention 
to adopt the canal plank came an unexpected demand for the 
nomination of John H. McGraw for the office of Governor, a 
result which followed over his protest and against his wish. 
He had not aspired to be Governor. He had not sought, and 
did not then seek, public honors. In his modesty he felt him- 
self unequipped to assume such grave responsibilities and to 
discharge the duties and functions of so important an office. 
He preferred to be one of the governed, and profoundly shrank 
from the duty of governing. In consenting, he accepted the 
judgment of his trusted friends rather than his own, and sac- 
rificed private interest and personal inclination to the call of 
duty. He was elected after a campaign of unusual bitterness 
and personal strife, and entered upon the discharge of the 
duties of his office as the first warning notes of the panic of 

28 



'93 began to be heard by the financiers of the nation. This 
great financial panic continued during his entire term as Chief 
Executive of the State. Paralyzing as it was to the industries 
and commercial life of the nation as a whole, the suffering 
and destitution it brought upon our young commonwealth 
was vastly greater. Many of its citizens were recent settlers 
and wholly unprepared for the long continued and extreme ad- 
versity which followed. In its crushing grasp fortunes were 
dissipated ; employments ceased, and many were deprived of the 
very necessities of life. These were times to try the souls 
of men; to test their moral fiber. Governor McGraw was 
naturally a partisan. He was a staunch and devoted friend, 
and in his devotion was ever ready to make the greatest per- 
sonal sacrifice; but in the clamor for public place, brought 
about by the exigencies of the times, he was a firm and just 
judge, never faltering and never flinching when the public in- 
terest was involved or public rights were sought to be invaded. 
He believed in his friends, and had a strong natural faith in 
the integrity of men. He was reluctant to believe in the fraud 
or dishonesty of others, but when convinced by reasonable 
proof he judged his quondam friend and employed his execu- 
tive power against him as unhesitatingly as against his ad- 
versary. 

When the strikes, that were already paralyzing the railways 
and other public service of the country, had extended them- 
selves to the railways and mines of the State, and Coxey 
armies were formed and marching, he not only grasped the 
fullness of his duty as chief executive of the State, but, 
without faltering or hesitating, promptly exercised the powers 
vested in him as Governor. A timid man or a mere politician 
would have hesitated, but to Governor McGraw the supremacy 
of the law, the peace and order of his commonwealth were 
above every other consideration. Personal prestige and popu- 
larity were with him a meager sacrifice to make upon the 
altar of duty. When that duty was clear, it mattered not 
to him where stood the multitude. In him there was no trace 
of physical or of moral cowardice. He felt, in the words of 



Lowell, that 



29 



"They are slaves who fear to speak 

For the fallen and the weak ; 
They are slaves who dare not be 

In the right with two or three." 

During his term as chief executive he was a dominating 
force in the enactment of all important legislation affecting 
the public interest and welfare. Whenever, in his judgment, 
that interest was invaded he did not hesitate to exercise the 
veto power. 

Time will not permit a review of the important legislation 
or of the principal events of his administration. 

Because of the financial distress of the period and the public 
and political unrest that inevitably followed upon its trail, 
both the Governor and his party fell under the ban of popular 
disapproval ; but Governor McGraw believed in and trusted the 
common people, and in the end they have come to believe in 
and trust him. The sober second thought of the American 
people is always to be trusted, and I venture the prediction 
that the future historians and political economists of the 
State of Washington will record no wiser or more efficient 
administration. 

In 1897, at the close of his administration, the fortune of 
Governor McGraw had been swept away. He was in debt, 
and possessed but a limited amount of property of no market 
value. To add to his other misfortunes, he learned from a 
political adversary, who was also a personal admirer, that 
the deputy, who had charge of the tax collections during his 
last term as Sheriff, had been a defaulter, his defalcation 
having been so skillfully covered as to escape discovery at 
the hands of the auditor and county commissioners when he 
turned over the office to his successor. Crushed by the blow, 
broken in his finances, to Governor McGraw the path of duty 
was clear, and he did not hesitate to enter upon it. He im- 
mediately caused an investigation to be made on his own 
behalf, and having ascertained the facts after the election 
of the fall of 1906, which carried the Populist party into power, 
he declined to submit the matter to the attention of the ex- 

30 



isting board, composed of his personal and political friends, 
before the close of their term, but immediately upon the in- 
duction in office of the new commissioners laid all the facts 
within his knowledge before them, and turned over all his 
assets to secure the indebtedness ascertained to be due the 
county. This circumstance is mentioned because the narra- 
tive of the facts portrays the rugged and faultless honesty of 
the man more perfectly than other words could do. 

Without fortune or avocation, broken in health, though 
not in spirit, armed with pick and shovel, Governor McGraw 
turned his face to the ice-bound fields of Alaska in search of 
gold to discharge his debts and to provide the daily bread for 
those he loved. He did not hesitate to toil nor to endure 
hardships because he had been the Governor of a great State. 
To him all honest labor was honorable ; he believed that labor 
manfully performed was more dignified than official honor 
undeserved. 

The fruits of his two years of hardship and toil in Alaska 
were disappointing. Upon his return he turned them over in 
discharge of the debts incident to his undertaking, and other 
unsecured indebtedness that, to his conception, represented 
debts of honor. Thus, after two years of toil, the accumulated 
interest of his outstanding indebtedness equaled or exceeded 
the net results of his efforts. 

So perfectly balanced was his judgment, so deeply ingrained 
his natural honesty, that he could judge against himself as 
justly and more unfalteringly than against another. He, 
therefore, determined that it was his duty, times having re- 
vived and prosperity returned, to surrender to his creditors 
all the property with which he had secured them, without 
longer delay, — a course which would have resulted in leaving 
him at fifty destitute, and in debt. The offer was, however, 
declined in justice to him and in deference to his magnamity. 

He thereupon engaged in the real estate business in this 
city in partnership with Mr. George B. Kittinger, in which 
business he has been since engaged. By reason of the pros- 
perity which has ensued, and his executive and administrative 
ability, his entire indebtedness was long since paid with 

31 



interest, and at his death he leaves a generous competency 
to his children. 

While engaged in business, he has, however, devoted much 
the larger part of his time to public interests and welfare. 
The public know of his labors as President of the Chamber 
of Commerce; as Vice-President of the Alaska- Yukon-Pacific 
Exposition ; as President of the Rainier Club ; but these labors 
represent but a part of the generous services and help he has 
given to the city and its citizens. Nor have his efforts and 
labors been confined to the city he loved ; they have been freely 
and generously given to promote the interests and the welfare 
of the State and of Alaska. 

His work was unfinished, and so, by his untimely death, it 
must fall to the hands of others. 

In one of my last interviews with him a couple of weeks 
before his death, he calmly told me that though encouraged 
by his physicians, he did not think he would recover. I re- 
minded him that with his vitality and his will power, there 
seemed no reason, in the light of the report of his physicians, 
why he might not recover, and expressed the conviction that 
the stormier period of his life being past, his best and most 
useful work remained to be done. He was silent a moment, 
and then, looking up with something of the old-time vigor in 
the glow of his eye, and grasping my hand, he said : "I will 
make the fight to win." But his imperious will was pitted 
against a stealthier and more powerful foe than it had ever 
encountered before, and the victory was Death's. 

From this brief and imperfect review of the life and deeds 
of Governor McGraw, many of his personal attributes and 
traits of character are disclosed. He was a man of impetuous 
nature and of imperious will ; when he believed himself right, 
he brooked opposition with difficulty and bore it down with 
grim and relentless power. Yet he was just to his enemy, 
and generous to his vanquished foe: He possessed an un- 
usually sound mind; nor was he ever long swayed by his im- 
pulses in the even balance of his judgment. 

He was endowed with a powerful and vigorous intellect, 
an intellect which ever thirsted for knowledge; and, notwith- 

32 



standing the lack of early advantages, he was, particularly 
after his entrance upon public life, a careful and thorough 
student of history and political economy, as well as of the 
best literature. He kept abreast of public events and of 
current history, and entertained sound and well-matured 
convictions upon all important public questions. 

Whatever opinion may have existed in the public mind to 
the contrary, he was modest and unambitious. His sense of 
public duty rose above every consideration personal to him- 
self. In obedience to this sense, he twice declined the tender 
of an election to the United States Senate, while Governor 
of the State. He was a man of action ; what his hand found 
to do, he did with his might; but what he did, he believed 
to be right and for the public good. He sought, as nearly as 
one of his virile nature could, to live by the motto, 

"Be noble, and the nobleness in others, sleeping perchance, 
but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet your own." 

He was profoundly patriotic and believed implicitly in a 
democratic government and in the supremacy of law. 

Like most strong men, he was tender and sympathetic; 
sympathetic to the unfortunate and the needy, and tender to 
those he loved; and, though the world may never have so 
judged, his love was almost an idolatry. 

He was a patriot, loving his country before all else, and 
ready to make any personal sacrifice for the good of his city, 
his State or his Nation. 

Above all, he was an honest man; as he despised falsehood, 
so he loved the truth. In his faith, 

"Great truths are portions of the soul of man ; 
Great souls are portions of eternity." 

By his grave, friend and foe, alike, may exclaim: "Here 
lies an honest man." And there, too, they may say, in the 
words of Washington Irving: 

"It buries every error — covers every defect — extinguishes 
every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but 
fond regrets and tender recollections." 

33 



Ulajnr at Sfattrral $mritt at 



F 



(( J^OR EVERY MAN shall bear his own burden; and 
a little one shall become a thousand." 

"The greatest mastery is that of self. When 
men have achieved self-control they have won a great victory. 
'He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh 
a city.' When the boy, John McGraw, started out at the age 
of 14 to make his way in the world he gave a practical demon- 
stration of the apostle and philosopher's statement: 'For 
every man shall bear his own burden/ which means, literally, 
that every person shall carry a 'pack,' solely his own obliga- 
tion, and for which no one else is responsible. The youth, 
John McGraw, got a grip of this principle of duty and progress 
at this early age, and it never forsook him till the day of 
his death. 

"It is always a pleasure to watch the growth of an obscure 
American boy, for he makes our best man, and because of 
his experiences, always has a sympathetic touch with all the 
people. The humble and the great alike rise up and give 
him praise. 

"The life of Governor McGraw reads like a romance. To 
look at him on the street, to visit him in his office, to meet 
him in the social life or in the governor's chair, one never 
would have thought that he walked out facing the world with 
the native endowments of self to fight his way by industry, 
honesty, and perseverance to become the leading citizen of 
our commonwealth. 

"His life ought to inspire every youth with the hope that 
with will and indomitable energy and courage all things are 
possible. 

34 



"A telegram came to me from the east yesterday which 
reads: 'We have heard with profoundest sorrow of Governor 
McGraw's death. He was the greatest man in our State/ 

"Governor McGraw's achievements for himself, his com- 
munity and our State are but evidences of the prophecy, 'A 
little one shall become a thousand.' His path was at times 
rough and required energy, ingenuity and perseverance, but 
the end was crowned with success. 

"The face of every courageous individual is forward. When 
a young man, John McGraw set his face westward. He heard 
the call 'Get thee out from thy country, thy kindred and thy 
father's house to a land that I will show thee.' And from 
that day to this he carried his 'pack' met and conquered his 
obstacles and asked no odds of any man. He grew in knowl- 
edge and experience until known to be one of the best educated 
men of our community, giving an example of a life of strength 
and power and great usefulness. The world will remember 
Governor McGraw because of his distinction as a public ser- 
vant, but we will remember him more particularly as a hus- 
band, father, friend and citizen. The Governor's greatness 
was tested in the home, with his friends, while he mingled with 
his fellows in the daily routine. He was always at his best 
in these circles. We might forget him as a great governor, 
a wise counselor, but never as a friend, neighbor and fellow 
citizen. 

"His political aspirations for himself were at an end, when 
it was whispered to him to 'trim his sails for the United States 
Senate.' But he said, 'I would rather live in my city and 
State, giving what little talent and influence I possess toward 
the building up of the State of my adoption. If I were to 
consult my own wishes and a certificate of election to the 
United States Senate were handed me, even without an effort 
or suggestion, voluntarily I would decline with pleasure.' 

"A man of 60 sees ambition from a different angle, and as 
he begins to go down toward life's close his sympathy deepens, 
his prejudices soften and his love broadens. Some of his 
lifelong ambitions are this day achieved; some are yet pros- 
pective, but will reach their culmination in the near future. 

35 



"He wanted to live most of all for his family. In the 
domestic circle he found the closest and dearest interests of 
his life. His son, his daughter and his four grandchildren 
meant more to him than the construction of the canal. He 
desired to live till these grandchildren were grown, educated, 
had found useful vocations, and more than that, he wanted 
to help them that they might not be hindered with some of 
those handicaps he had himself. 

"Governor McGraw was not a member of any church, yet 
a supporter and friend of Christian institutions. He prac- 
ticed the law of Christ, 'Bear ye one and another's burdens.' 
The man in an emergency found in him a faithful friend. But 
this is enough. He himself willed that his service would be 
short and simple. It is not a day for mourning. 

"This service, held upon the green, with his body slumber- 
ing peacefully in our midst and the landscape around us a 
stretch of beauty, and God's blue above us forbids mourning. 
That time is past. He lay sick in the bosom of a loving 
family, surrounded by numerous friends, the best physicians 
administering to his wants, with minister and citizen breath- 
ing a prayer for his recovery. But God took him. His time 
has come. The voice of the apostle comes to us all, 'O, Death, 
where is thy sting? O, Grave, where is thy victory? Eye 
hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered 
into the mind of man what we shall be.' 

"Governor McGraw has gone. We will wait till the day 
breaks and the shadows flee away. May his ashes rest in 
peace ; may his soul dwell with our God." 








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memorial 8>2vmtt 

Whitman (Balks*, Wtmtmbtv 15, 191II 

Memorial Service in honor of John Harte McGraw, member 
of the Board of Overseers of Whitman College, were held in 
the College Chapel November 15th, 1910. 

ORDER OF SERVICE 

PROCESSIONAL— Elegie - - - Russell King Miller 

SCRIPTURE LESSON. 

PRAYER. 

PRESIDENT STEPHEN B. L. PENROSE, PD.D 

ADDRESS, 

HON. CORNELIUS H. HANFORD, LL.D. 

ANTHEM — Ave Verum Mozart 

ADDRESS, 

HON. GEORGE TURNER, LL.D. 

ANTHEM — How Lovely are Thy Dwellings - - E. Blum 
RECESSIONAL— Funeral March .... Chopin 

John Harte McGraw was born October 4, 1850, in Penobscot 
County, Maine. He came as a young man to the Pacific Coast, 
and was elected Sheriff of King County in 1882, continuing in 
office until 1890. He was elected Governor of the State of 
Washington in 1893 and served for four years. He was presi- 
dent of the First National Bank of Seattle from 1890 to 1897, 
and of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce from 1905 until 
July 8, 1909. 

A&fcr*BH of Sfort. (&tarQt burner 

/AM TO SPEAK of the life and character of John H. 
McGraw. To deal adequately with his life and char- 
acter would be to write the history of Washington, State 
and Territory, for a third of a century. The task must be 
left to the historian. One dealing with the subject in the 
compass of an ordinary address, must content himself with 

37 



outlines, trusting to the knowledge of his hearers to fill in 
the details thus suggested. It is a melancholy pleasure to 
me, however, to assist, even imperfectly, in doing honor to the 
memory of that distinguished man. An estrangement occur- 
ring in 1887, springing from causes which I will not name, 
but in which I have long felt myself at fault, interrupted the 
former friendly relations of Governor McGraw and myself, and 
prevented any intimacy between us for many years. But even 
then, I honored him for his distinguished ability, his great 
moral and physical courage and his many recognized civic 
virtues. Later when the estrangement had worn away and 
I learned to know the personal side of his character, the mag- 
nanimity of his mind, the tenderness of his heart, his loyalty 
to friends, his justice to foes, his zeal in upholding the right 
at all times, I became his warm friend, and no man in all 
the land mourned his untimely death more sincerely than I did. 
I was in Europe when news of that unhappy event reached 
me, and in all truth and sincerity, it was many days before 
the heavy load of depression lifted from my mind and heart. 
We had parted in the city of Washington only a few weeks 
before, and he was then the picture of health and strength, 
ruddy of countenance, clear of eye, clean of limb, and upright 
of stature. Energy and intelligence radiated from every feat- 
ure of his speaking countenance. I little thought that the grim 
reaper had then already marked him for his own. When such 
a man is stricken to earth before his time, like some giant of 
the forest uprooted by the tempest, we feel a sense of the 
improvidence of nature and wonder why it should be. We 
know, however, that the earth is but a speck in infinity, and 
that the providence of the infinite embraces the entire universe, 
and may well assume that the same economy which employs 
great minds in the affairs of life employs great souls in the 
infinitely higher affairs of limitless eternity. All that we know 
for certain about this life and the next is that 

"We pass ; that path that each man trod 

Is dim, or will be dim with weeds ; 

What fame is left for human deeds 
In endless age? It rests with God." 

38 



Yet no man who ever lived, good or bad, perishes entirely 
from earth. No physical or moral impulse set in motion 
by nature or by man, but lives for all time in some form or 
power or influence, and can be traced back to its first cause. 
And so it is that men, in the good or bad that they do, truly 
live after they have ceased to live the present life. When 
their lives have been good, it is the sacred duty of friends 
to leave suitable memorials thereof, to the double end that 
their fame may be preserved and that future generations of 
men may profit by their example. As some broken column, 
dug up from the ruins of antiquity, serves to recall the beauty 
and strength of the temple which it once supported and 
adorned, so the deeds and achievements of great men and 
good men, though preserved only in fragments, serve for the 
reconstruction of the human personality of their doers, and 
lead to that admiration and emulation which it is the divine 
office of such deeds and achievements to evoke in the human 
heart. 

I shall be happy if any poor words of mine can help serve 
this office for one I felt honored to call friend for many years 
before his death, and whose brilliant mind and great heart 
enabled him to do so much that is worthy of admiration and 
emulation at the hands of future generations. 

Governor McGraw was or Irish parentage, a strain of blood 
which has found its highest development in the invigorating 
atmosphere of free American institutions a hundred fold, 
both in war and in peace, by the deathless names with which 
it has illumined the pages of American history. He was 
born at Barker's Plantation, Penobscot County, Maine, Octo- 
ber 4th, 1850. It would not be correct to say that he was 
born to poverty and humble station. That cannot yet be 
said, and I hope and believe may never be said, of any child 
born on American soil and inheriting the opportunities of 
American citizenship ; but his parents were poor and the pinch 
of poverty was intensified by the death of his father while 
he was still of tender years. The consequence was that he 
snatched a few months instruction at the public schools and 
at the age of fourteen years entered actively on the struggle 



of life. That has been the history of so many of our great 
men, great not only in material achievements, but in depth 
of learning and breadth of mind, and it is a fact so exceptional 
in the history of peoples, that it calls for passing notice. It 
is to be accounted for, I believe, by the genius of our institu- 
tions and their moulding effect on our people. For every 
boy, rich or poor, the gates of opportunity stand open, and 
there are no castes or classes. Labor is honorable and struggle 
for advancement commendable. The result is that every 
youth, without regard to birth or station, enters into the 
life of his community as fully as his aspirations prompt him 
to do, and by the time he has reached his majority, if he has 
improved the opportunities thus afforded, he is up to the gen- 
eral average in acquired knowledge and worldly experience. 
In other words, the average American community is in a cer- 
tain sense a college or university which every youth of spirit 
and ambition is free to attend, and from which, in the course 
of time, he graduates a reasonably well informed man. Read- 
ing and self -improvement do the rest. I do not say that this 
is the best training for men — I know by my own experience 
that it is not; that the men with such training suffer under 
many disadvantages — but it has produced many of our great 
men. The bench and the bar, the pulpit, the halls of legis- 
lation, the higher offices of administration, the chief magistry 
itself, and even the faculties of our colleges and universities, 
all attest the fact. Governor McGraw had this training and 
he became the chief magistrate of his state and its foremost 
citizen ever after until the time of his death, and if he had 
been called to national fields of usefulness, he would have met 
and discharged every duty and responsibility with the same 
distinction which marked his efforts in the narrower but not 
less important field to which fortune called him. 

After leaving home young McGraw served the usual nov- 
itiate of a boy in a small American town, having his own way 
to make in the world. We find him at seventeen clerk in a 
general merchandise store. Later, after attaining his ma- 
jority, he entered in a small way into the mercantile business 
on his own account, but he was not one to deal in small 

40 



economies, or to successfully garner small profits, and after 
the panic of 1873, he failed in business and was again thrown 
upon his own personal efforts for a livelihood. Having mar- 
ried in the meantime and seeing no opportunity for advance- 
ment in his then surroundings, he turned his eyes in this 
emergency to the golden West, and gathering together the 
scanty means left him, sailed for San Francisco, his sole 
possession a faithful helpmeet, a brave, hopeful and active 
mind and a vital energy which recognized no obstacle and 
acknowledged no defeat. Here on this coast he found the 
field for which he was born; the career which comes to men 
of his mould as if by right of inheritance. He embodied in 
his personality, more than any man I ever knew, the spirit 
of the West, its hope and its courage, its energy and its per- 
severance, its sympathy and its generosity, its trust in its 
imperial destiny and its confidence in the capacity of its citi- 
zenship to work that destiny out to a perfect realization. Such 
a man could not fail in the environment to which he had 
now transferred himself. But he did not come into his in- 
heritance at once, nor did he claim it immediately. Indeed, 
he did not know that it was his. He landed in San Francisco 
July 10th, 1876, and at once took work as driver of a horse 
car. From a casual acquaintance he learned of the better 
opportunities to the north, and he sailed for Seattle, landing 
there December 28, 1876. He at once accepted employment 
as clerk of the Occidental Hotel and later ventured into the 
hotel business himself. When his hotel burned down, leav- 
ing him again stranded, he became a policeman. His service 
was so satisfactory in that capacity that the people of Seattle 
elected him marshal in 1879, and elected him to the same 
office successively until 1882, when they promoted him by 
electing him to a vacancy in the office of Sheriff of King 
County. He was elected to the latter office for two succes- 
sive terms, and was defeated for a third term in 1886 as 
the result of causes I will mention later on. I digress for 
a moment to observe that it is quite evident from this recital 
of his early career that he was no carpet knight; that he 
disdained no work that was honorable, and that he slighted 

41 



no task to which he had once put his hand. It was these 
qualifications that secured him advancement in Seattle and 
King County and finally won him the confidence and support 
of the people of the State of Washington for the highest 
office in their gift. The occasion of his defeat for Sheriff 
for a third term was honorable to him and exhibited his 
dauntless courage and stubborn devotion to duty in a way 
which marked him for higher things. During his last term 
as Sheriff an agitation against the Chinese broke out in most 
of the coast cities. The Chinese were deported en masse 
from Tacoma, were driven from other cities by violence, and 
the attempt was made to drive them from Seattle. A very 
considerable number of the people of Seattle undoubtedly 
sympathized with the attempt. But John H. McGraw, as 
Sheriff, was not the man to stand by and see peaceable and 
law-abiding inhabitants of this county of any nationality driven 
from its limits contrary to the law of the land. He asserted 
and maintained the majesty of the law, and in the clash which 
followed blood was shed and life was lost; but no man in 
the county living under the law was deprived of its protec- 
tion. The election coming on soon after these events, the 
angry mob that he had foiled visited on him what it deemed 
a punishment and what he no doubt deemed a punishment, 
by electing his opponent to the office of Sheriff. But instead 
of being a punishment, it simply fixed on him a mark of 
distinction which followed him through life, and won for 
him a loyal support which was to carry him to the highest 
honors that the people of the State could bestow. 

Governor McGraw had studied law during his incumbency 
of the office of Sheriff and it is a conclusive evidence of the 
mental stature to which he had attained and of the esteem 
in which he was held by his fellows, that upon his retirement 
from the office of Sheriff he became a member of the law 
firm of Greene, Hanford & McGraw, the two seniors of the 
firm being Hon. Eoger S. Greene, formerly Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court of the Territory and Hon. C. H. Hanford, 
now Judge of the District Court of the United States for the 
Western District of Washington, both of them then eminent 

42 



in the profession as they have been ever since. But he was 
not destined to have a career at the bar, although eminently 
fitted for it by training, experience, character, temperament, 
and natural endowments. In 1888 his friends insisted on 
electing him Sheriff of King County for a fourth time in 
vindication of his course in connection with the Chinese riots, 
and their plea struck a responsive chord in his breast. He 
was triumphantly elected and served out his term, but refused 
any further election. By this time he had become a state 
wide character, and from that day until the day of his death, 
he exercised a wide influence in the political affairs of the 
State and in all movements political or non-political cal- 
culated to promote its material development. In 1892 he was 
elected Governor, taking his seat in January, 1893, and serv- 
ing until January, 1897. His service in that capacity ex- 
hibited his usual courage and capacity. In many respects 
it was conspicuously brilliant. But the country had fallen 
on evil days. The panic of 1893 was coincident with his 
inauguration and the business depression which followed con- 
tinued and increased with each year of his four years term. 
When he left the office to return to his home in Seattle the 
country was bankrupt, and he along with it. His devotion 
to duty had left him no time for attention to his private 
affairs, and in the general ruin which had taken place his 
accumulations had not only been swept away, but he found 
himself largely involved in debt. The struggle of life was to be 
renewed with an added burden. The course which he now 
pursued was characteristic of the man. He did not wait 
to be lifted from his difficulties by the patronage of the public 
in any one of a dozen different kinds of business which he 
might have entered, a patronage which his distinguished ser- 
vice and well known fidelity to every trust would have readily 
commanded. The wealth of Alaska in the precious metals 
had then become known, and in the summer of 1897 he made 
his way into the unknown wilds of that country in company 
with a party of adventurers of like mind, determined never 
to leave it until he had wrested from its frozen bosom a suf- 
ficiency of its golden dross to rehabilitate him in the business 

43 



world. Here he dug and delved as an ordinary miner, taking 
his shift in regular order and meeting every call on his 
strength and courage, and they were many and great, with 
a fortitude that never faltered or hesitated. This I think 
the most magnificent chapter of his life. He did not enjoy 
it any more than any of us would. But it impressed him 
as the one way to rehabilitate himself quickly, so that he 
could take his place and hold up his head among his fellow 
citizens of Seattle and he went to the task as he had gone 
to every task throughout his life to which honor and duty 
called him. He was only moderately successful in his quest 
for wealth, but at the end of two years he found himself 
possessed of sufficient gold to pay his debts. Then he re- 
turned to the city that was his home, and which he loved 
with almost filial devotion, and paid to the last dollar, prin- 
cipal and interest, every creditor who could advance a claim 
against him. He had satisfied the call of an exacting sense 
of honor, but in doing so had stripped himself entirely of 
his hard won Alaska earnings. But that was what they 
were earned for, and now he could look his neighbors in the 
face without blushing and devote himself on even terms with 
the best of them to improving the unrivaled opportunities 
which the great Northwest offered to men with foresight and 
judgment united to energy and courage. From this time for- 
ward fortune smiled on his every effort, thus proving the 
universality of his mind, that it was well fitted for any field 
of usefulness to which he might care to apply it. I had 
thought at one time that he was destined to high national 
honors, and undoubtedly he could have achieved them if he 
had tried. But he seemed to have lost ambition for official 
distinction after retiring from the office of Governor. The 
burden of his official duties during that time of national 
distress undoubtedly wore on him, and the unfortunate result 
on his own private fortunes, added to his memory of the dis- 
comforts of office. To this is to be attributed his dislike for 
office and his repeated refusals to permit his friends to again 
bring forward his name for any, even the most distinguished, 
positions within the gift of the people. But he had not lost 

44 



interest in the great state with which his life had been so 
intimately identified, nor in the fortunes of friends who were 
more ambitions than he for political distinction. He was 
easily the foremost man in his party in the state at the time 
of his death and had been so continuously for twenty years. 
He thus became the Warwick of Republican politics, a position 
grateful to him because it enabled him to indulge his par- 
tiality for friends, while at the same time safeguarding the 
material interests of the state. To this end he became a 
member of all conventions of the Republican party, state 
and national, did not disdain service on its committees, and 
entered with his usual heartiness and thoroughness into the 
details of its campaign work. That political organization lost 
a giant when he pulled off his harness for the last time. And 
the State of Washington at the same time lost its greatest 
lover, its most distinguished citizen and the most potent in- 
dividual force for good, that it held within its borders. 

Governor McGraw's disinclination for office did not come 
from a desire for repose. He was energy incarnate up to 
the last, and his mind was always active in conceiving plans 
for the upbuilding and the advancement of the state. The 
great city which he honored with his citizenship, and which 
repaid him with a devotion that never faltered, was naturally 
the object of his greatest solicitude. He accepted service as 
the head of its commercial organizations, took the lead in 
promoting its local enterprises, and spent much of his time 
each winter, as its representative in Washington, endeavoring 
to secure favorable action on legislation needed for its adequate 
development. But there was no section of the state that he 
did not love and would not aid. When the movement for a 
Greater Whitman was inaugurated it met an instant response 
in his broad mind and generous heart, and no man labored 
harder or with more intelligence and success, to bring the 
movement to a successful conclusion. He was always on 
the ground when called, although at considerable sacrifice 
of valuable time, and helped to conceive and execute plans 
for the advancement of the college with the superb energy 
usual with him where his sympathetic interest was aroused. 

45 



Whitman College, and those who are left to struggle for its 
advancement, will long feel the void created by his absence. 

Governor McGraw came to Washington in its later pioneer 
period. It was already rich in historic names which will grow 
in honor as the state grows in years. Whitman and Stevens 
will live in song and story as long as the fabric of our govern- 
ment endures. But in their day patient acceptance of toils 
and privations, and heroic courage in facing ever impending 
danger, to the end that the American people might come into 
their heritage, were the prime qualities that the occasion de- 
manded. In the later pioneer period energy and enterprise 
had begun to hew things of beauty and utility from our vast 
but inert resources and to offer them as a beneficience to 
mankind and political institutions were being transformed 
from the vague and rough outlines of the earlier days into 
the accepted forms of American constitutional government, 
based on approved maxims of right and justice, and approved 
principles of constitutional limitation. The galaxy of great 
names which this period of our history produced I cannot 
enumerate because many of them are yet living realities in 
our midst; but I may without impropriety mention the names 
of Elisha P. Ferry and John B. Allen. Contemporary with 
the men of this period and with their compeers, living and 
dead, was John H. McGraw. I would not draw comparisons 
where all are so worthy of high commendation, but I may 
properly state and declare that Washington in all its history 
has produced no man of more commanding talent, of greater 
constructive genius, of more superb courage, and of greater 
loyalty and devotion to duty than John H. McGraw. He 
died, alas! at a comparatively early age, and while still in 
the prime of mental and bodily vigor, but his influence pene- 
trated deep into the grain of the complex life of the state, 
and his brilliant personality will stand out for all time in 
its history as strong and clear cut as a cameo. 

That such men should grace the early history of all our 
American commonwealths and stand out ever after more 
vividly than those who come after them, is but the develop- 
ment of natural causes. The nation has had its growth 

46 



westward from the Atlantic to the Pacific, building up in 
the process a succession of great states, each of which has 
had its early struggle against savage men and savage nature. 
The trials and dangers as well as the honors and rewards of 
empire building attract the bold and adventurous to the 
frontier, as the ease and comfort of settled society hold the 
timid and conservative to their places. Youth and strength, 
energy and courage, called to extraordinary endeavor in 
peace and in war, have marked the progress of the nation 
in its westward march. The emergency, and the men best 
fitted to meet the emergency, have met at each succeeding 
frontier, with the result that the most brilliant pages of 
American history have sprung from the trials and dangers, 
the triumphs and achievements, attending the formative period 
of our galaxy of commonwealths. 

The normal man possesses, in greater or less perfection, 
a brain to conceive, a will to execute, a heart to feel and a 
conscience to admonish and hold him in check. Some men 
possess the first two only. Nature sometimes presents the 
anomaly of one possessing the first three without the fourth. 
The truly great man, great both mentally and morally, pos- 
sesses all four in full, perfect and harmonious development. 
Those who were close to Governor McGraw know that, meas- 
ured by this standard, he was one of the truly great. His 
mind was as clear and flawless as a diamond, his will power 
as resistless as the sea, his heart as tender as a woman's and 
his conscience so compelling that no temptation or emergency 
ever drove him to a mean, contemptible or unjust act. To all 
these qualities he added sublime courage, ingenuous candor, 
generous magnanimity, and a high sense of justice to friends 
and foes. If he was fortunate in coming at the time he did 
to write his name in the history of a great state, he was equally 
fortunate that he possessed, more than any man among his 
contemporaries, the qualities of mind and heart which en- 
abled so many great men before him, scattered all over the 
continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean to write 
their names in letters of fire on the blazing pages of history. 

47 



The name of John H. McGraw is there written and there, 
with this humble tribute, I leave it. 

The brave heart of our friend is cold and pulseless, but 
the great soul which animated him in life, the immortal spirit 
which clung to him as if loath to leave him even in death, 
these and the life work that they prompted, will live on 
forever through time and eternity. 

"These shall resist the empire of decay, 
When time is o'er and worlds have passed away ; 
Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, 
But that which warmed it once can never die." 



AJftr*H0 of 2?ott. GL % ^anforo 



/T~f O ENABLE Whitman College to progress towards the 
I destiny to which it is called, the men of Oregon, 

-*- Washington and Idaho who are strong, able and 

patriotic must contribute to its up-building, time and mental 
energy as well as money, and its active promoters have been 
encouraged by the willing responses to the invitation extended 
to a number of prominent citizens to constitute its Board of 
Overseers. One who participated in the organization of the 
board and by attendance at subsequent meetings, evinced a 
purpose to use his talents in the service of the college, has 
been removed and his career terminated by death. Governor 
McGraw was by reason of his natural and acquired capacity, 
and his habitual willingness to engage in gratuitous public 
services pre-eminent among the useful citizens of the State of 
Washington. The phrase "useful citizen" is especially ap- 
plicable to him because it accurately epitomizes his character. 
He is missed in all the places where previous to his last illness, 
his activities encouraged and aided his associates in their 
endeavors to promote the public welfare. Whitman College 
feels the loss of a friend and helper, and to give suitable 
expression to the highest estimation of his worth and to per- 
petuate a memorial of his virtues this audience has assembled 
to devote a little time to the contemplation of his personality 
and the record of his life. 

48 



On the 4th day of October, 1850, in the County of Penobscot, 
State of Maine, John Harte McGraw was born. His parents 
belonged to the class of ordinary respectable New England 
country folks. When he was yet in his babyhood his father 
died and for a time his widowed mother struggled with pov- 
erty to support and educate her young children. During his 
childhood, young McGraw had the educational advantages af- 
forded by the country district schools of his native State. 
When he was 14 years of age his mother having re-married, 
he left the parental home and took charge of his own future. 
To prepare himself for a business career he took a course in 
a business college and became a competent bookkeeper, a good 
penman and generally well-informed youth, but this was not 
the completion of his education for in his mature years he 
pursued a course of study whereby he was qualified to prac- 
tice law and was admitted to the bar of Seattle in the year 
1886, and throughout his life he was a reader and student of 
the best literature, whereby he became a self-educated and 
a well educated man. When he was 20 years of age he be- 
came a partner with his brother in the retail grocery busi- 
ness. This first business venture ended in failure during the 
financial panic of 1873. McGraw was then penniless but 
courageous and hopeful. His manly spirit was evinced by 
his marriage previous to his departure from his native State 
to make his fortune in the great West. His first employment 
after his arrival on the Pacific Coast was in the capacity 
of driver of a horse car in San Francisco. After a few 
months in that service, having studied the conditions affect- 
ing different localities he became imbued with faith in Seattle, 
as a desirable place for a young man to make a home and 
acquire a fortune. Accordingly he came to Seattle and ob- 
tained employment as a hotel clerk, and soon afterwards 
became a partner in the firm of Haley & McGraw, proprietors 
of a hotel. This second business venture ended in a second 
failure caused by destruction of the property by fire. Through- 
out his entire life, McGraw was an honorable and upright 
man, generally respected and held in the highest estimation 
by all who knew him well, but his good reputation and his 

49 



actual worth as a man did not shield him from wounds in- 
flicted by malignant slanderers. One of the slanders often 
repeated and used by prejudiced and ill-disposed persons as a 
weapon in political campaigns, was to the effect that the 
Haley & McGraw hotel was a gambling dive and that the 
proprietors made a practice of fleecing the patrons of the 
house by means of unfair gambling devices. 

Having again lost all of his means by the burning of the 
hotel, McGraw sought employment and secured a position as 
a police officer and he patrolled the streets of Seattle at night 
during the year 1879. In the year 1880 and again in 1881 
he was by vote of the people, elected City Marshal and Chief 
of Police, notwithstanding the slander referred to which was 
originated to prejudice him and cause his defeat the first 
time he was a candidate for an elective office. The same 
falsehood, however, was repeated in the campaign of 1892 
when McGraw was the Eepublican candidate for Governor 
of the State. It was last heard under the following peculiar 
circumstances. While McGraw was making a canvass of the 
State, he was on one occasion in a car on the Northern Pa- 
cific Eailroad surrounded by a number of gentlemen who 
knew him well, a stranger injected himself into the group and 
commenced talking politics. He directed his conversation 
especially in the way of denunciation of the Republican can- 
didate for Governor, and soon became engaged in a colloquy 
with McGraw himself, in which he narrated the old slander 
about the Haley and McGraw gambling practices. McGraw 
questioned him and cross-examined him to ascertain the 
source of his information. The stranger asserted and stoutly 
maintained that his statements were based upon his personal 
knowledge and were true. He asserted that he knew McGraw 
well and had seen him and had conversed with him only a 
few hours previous. Having completely committed himself 
by the vehemence of his assertions and exposed his ignorance 
of the identity of his questioner, the mendacious liar was of 
course convicted in the estimation of all who heard the con- 
versation, and as a purveyor of slander, he was eliminated 
from the campaign. 

50 



In the year 1882 McGraw became Sheriff of King County 
and continued to hold that office until January, 1887. He 
was defeated for re-election in 1886 when there was a popular 
wave of opposition to law and law enforcers which had its 
origin in an agitation in favor of forcible expulsion of the 
Chinese inhabitants in Washington Territory, in disregard of 
the rights of those people which our national government was 
by treaty obligations bound to maintain. 

The anti-Chinese agitation to which I have referred and 
the actions resulting from it, make an important chapter 
in the history of Washington Territory. It began as an echo 
of an anti-Chinese agitation which had been carried on in 
San Francisco by Dennis Kearney and other orators who at 
the time were commonly referred to as "Sand Lot Orators" 
because they discoursed to crowds assembled on vacant ground 
in San Francisco designated as the "Sand Lots." The first 
evidence that people in Washington Territory considered the 
subject seriously was in the city election of Tacoma in the 
year 1885, when General Sprague, the foremost citizen of 
Tacoma, was a candidate for the office of Mayor and was 
defeated by a man named Weisbach who was but little known, 
but who made a successful campaign by declaiming against 
the Chinese inhabitants and advocating their expulsion from 
the locality. Later in the same year an attack was made 
upon Chinese employed as coal miners in Wyoming Terri- 
tory and several of them were killed, and a few days later a 
night assault was made upon a camp of Chinese laborers 
employed as hop pickers in King County. While the hop 
pickers were asleep and unconscious of danger, a number of 
murderous conspirators approached and fired a volley into 
their camp, killing two and wounding others. Soon after- 
wards there was an assemblage at Seattle of self-appointed 
delegates constituting an Anti-Chinese Congress, so-called, 
which was managed by the Mayor of Tacoma and a visitor 
from California named Cronin. The Congress adopted a reso- 
lution, the meaning of which was that all the Chinese in- 
habitants of the localities represented in the Congress, should 
be notified to depart from the Territory on or before a speci- 

51 



fled date and that those remaining after said date should be 
compelled to go. Committees were appointed to so notify 
the Chinese. At that time the police force of Seattle did not 
exceed ten men and, of course, was entirely inadequate to 
subdue, or even check a riotous assault upon the Chinese in- 
habitants and in view of the apparent probability that there 
would be trouble, a number of citizens held a conference to 
devise means to defeat any attempt to carry into effect the un- 
lawful scheme of the so-called Congress, and as a result of 
their deliberations, public meetings were called which were 
attended by several hundred citizens who were organized as a 
posse comitatus and sworn in as deputy sheriffs prepared to 
act when called upon to suppress a riot. The effect of the 
action of the people in the different assemblages mentioned, 
was to create opposing factions in Seattle. One faction, in- 
flamed by outside agitators who appealed to race prejudice 
and selfishness, assumed an attitude of opposition to national 
authority and proposed to exert force in defiance of law 
and in violation of the treaty obligations of the nation, in 
order to remove several hundred Chinese persons from locali- 
ties where they had a lawful right to remain, to accomplish 
no better result than to inflict their unwelcome presence upon 
a community in another State. The men composing the other 
faction, took an oath to support and defend the constitution 
of the United States and to uphold the laws of the country 
and to aid the constituted officers, when required, in main- 
taining peace and protecting all inhabitants in the enjoyment 
of their legal rights. There was at that time no justification 
in existing conditions for the proposed abuse of the Chinese, 
they were comparatively few in number, there being less than 
500 in Seattle, and they were not competing for employment 
desired by white people. A few were employed as cooks and 
house servants by families unable to obtain other help. Most 
of them were doing laundry work for families of working men 
who would have suffered great inconvenience without their 
assistance for at that time there were no well equipped laun- 
dries operated by white people. The law and order faction 
was not composed of men who were enemies of their own race, 

52 



nor infatuated with a preference for the Mongolians. None 
of them favored an influx into our country of Chinese laborers, 
but accepting conditions as they existed, they stood for the 
upholding of national honor and the protection of every indi- 
vidual in the enjoyment of the rights and privileges guar- 
anteed by the laws of the country. They believed that liberty 
regulated by law is a boon secured to the people of this coun- 
try by the fortitude and the sacrifices of our patriotic an- 
cestors, and to be defended by the living at whatever cost. They 
believed also that an attack made upon the poorest or the 
humblest, whether citizens or aliens, in violation of legal 
rights, was in its ultimate effect an attack upon the principle 
of liberty, and therefore to be opposed as an act of hostility 
against the nation's life. 

At the time of the occurrences referred to there was un- 
doubtedly a large majority of the legal voters in full sympathy 
and active accord with the anti-Chinese agitators and their 
plans of action, but Sheriff McGraw was not the man to be 
swayed by popular clamor, he was not like many Sheriffs 
have been, a mere pretender as a peace officer, nor a finder 
of excuses for permitting violent crimes by tumultuous as- 
semblies. He proved himself to be a man of courage and 
capacity to meet an emergency and conquer opposition to 
official authority. In a candid report to the Governor of 
Washington Territory, Sheriff McGraw narrated the facts 
regarding his official conduct. A more concise, reliable or 
interesting statement cannot be made than by adopting the 
phraseology of that report, and in view of slanders recently 
circulated affecting the character and conduct of one of 
Sheriff McGraw's supporters, I deem it worth while to set 
forth the true history of the anti-Chinese agitation in Seattle 
in this authentic form, and therefore quote the principal part 
of that report : 

To his Excellency, 

Watson C. Squire, 

Governor of Washington Territory. 

Sir : In compliance with your request that I make a report 
to you of my official acts in connection with the anti-Chinese 

53 



riot and disturbances in this county during last fall and 
winter, I respectfully submit the following brief summary 
of the steps taken by me to preserve peace, and the occasion 
therefor : 

The commencement of the Chinese troubles in this county 
was the killing of two Chinese hop-pickers and wounding of 
one or two others at Squak Valley on the night of September 
7, 1885, by a party of seven or eight residents of that valley. 
Messrs. Wold Brothers, hop growers at Squak, had engaged 
a gang of Chinamen to pick their hops, and were warned 
before the arrival of the Chinese that Chinese hop-pickers 
would not be tolerated in the valley, and they would be driven 
out if they came. However, on Saturday, the 5th day of Sep- 
tember, about thirty-five Chinamen arrived at Wold Bros, 
place and pitched their tents in the hop fields. That evening 
several white men and Indians, armed with rifles, visited the 
camp, and endeavored by threats to intimidate the Chinese 
and thus induce them to leave. The Chinamen did not go; 
and on Monday night part of the same crowd again visited 
the Chinese camp and fired a volley into the tents, with the 
result above stated. 

I received information of this occurrence the next day, and 
immediately went to the scene, accompanied by the Territorial 
Prosecuting Attorney, the Coroner of King County, and the 
Chief of Police of Seattle, and with their assistance I gath- 
ered all the information I could and made as complete an 
investigation of the affair as it was possible to make, and 
thereupon an inquest was held by the Coroner, at the con- 
clusion of which I arrested five white men and two Indians 
whom I believed from evidence obtained were the perpetra- 
tors of the outrage. These seven persons were in due form 
charged with the crime of murder, and were committed to 
my custody to await the action of the Grand Jury in the 
premises, and all of them, with some others, were at the 
October term of the District Court, in Seattle, indicted for 
the crime of murder in the first degree, and also for riot. 
At the same term of Court two of them, on separate trials 
for murder, were acquitted; and one other of the parties was 

54 



tried for riot, and convicted of the offence. These trials 
were long, tedious, and expensive, and I am sure that the 
failure to secure a more decisive vindication of the law can- 
not be attributed to lack of effort on the part of the officers. 
Myself and deputies earnestly and diligently endeavored to 
gather and bring to light all the material evidence that could 
possibly be obtained. 

Very soon after the outrage in Squak Valley above men- 
tioned, a party of Chinese laborers at Coal Creek, near New- 
castle, in this county, were driven from their houses in the 
night time by a number of masked persons, who then set fire 
to and destroyed the shanties from which the Chinese had 
fled. Immediately after being notified of this occurrence, I 
secured the services of three intelligent and reliable persons 
who were in the best positions to do so, to endeavor to detect 
and bring to justice all who were concerned in the commission 
of this offence, but all efforts to identify the parties have 
thus far failed. 

About the time of these occurrences, a general anti-Chinese 
agitation was commenced in this city under the leadership 
of one R. Jacob Weisbach, then Mayor of Tacoma, who is gen- 
erally supposed to be a Socialist and anarchist, assisted by 
one Daniel Cronin, an itinerant organizer of Socialists, and 
several other professional agitators. Partly on account of 
dull times, and partly in consequence of the completion of 
the Canadian Pacific Railroad, having thrown out of employ- 
ment several thousand laborers, many of whom had found 
their way to Seattle without means to go further, these evil 
designing leaders were able to gather about them a strong 
force of unemployed and discontented people, who were will- 
ing to, and did, create apprehension and alarm by openly 
threatening to support their leaders in a movement to forcibly 
expel all Chinese persons from this Territory. At a public 
meeting held in Seattle in the latter part of September, called 
an anti-Chinese congress, composed of delegations from Ta- 
coma, Whatcom, Newcastle and a few other places, it was 
resolved that committees should be appointed in each locality 
whose duty it should be to notify the Chinese to leave the 

55 



Territory by the first of November. The apparent method 
and determination of the movement, and the general public 
apprehension of lawlessness likely to result from it, caused 
me, after consultation with the Mayor of Seattle and many 
other leading citizens of the county, to organize a strong force 
to act as a posse comitatus to aid me in suppressing any law- 
less attempt of the character threatened, if it should be made. 
Accordingly, on the night of October 3d about four hundred 
citizens of the county assembled in Seattle, and were sworn 
in as my deputies, and the following day arrangements were 
completed for speedily bringing this force together for effec- 
tive work if the necessity for it should arise. And I also 
made arrangements to secure the co-operation and assistance 
of the two organized companies of militia then in Seattle, 
under command of Captains Joseph Green and J. C. Haines. 

This work of preparation on my part for maintaining the 
law and affording protection to all persons entitled to it 
seemed for a time to overcome the determination and to change 
the purposes of the agitators, and served to allay the public 
apprehension of danger. But over-confidence on the part of 
the patriotic citizens led to such relaxation of vigilance on 
their part that the opinion became quite general that what 
had been done was unnecessary and unwise. This gave re- 
newed confidence in a corresponding degree to the agitators 
and the discontented element, and their work of preparation 
for violence went on. 

On the evening of November 3d the report came from Ta- 
coma that the forcible expulsion of several hundred Chinese 
persons from that place had been successfully accomplished. 
And within a day or two afterwards reports were received 
that the deserted houses of the Chinese in Tacoma had been 
destroyed by fire. These reports caused intense excitement 
here, and most of the people believed, as I did, that similar 
proceedings in Seattle could only be prevented by the presence 
of the United States military force, or an actual collision 
between the citizens acting as my deputies and the local militia 
with the turbulent element; and accordingly, for the purpose 
of avoiding such collision, and probable bloodshed, on the 6th 

56 



day of November, by telegraph, I informed you of the situa- 
tion, and urged you to request that a military force be sent 
here ; and also believing that a disturbance was liable to occur 
before the troops could arrive, under authority of your tele- 
gram to me, dated Nov. 5th, of which the following is a copy, 
to-wit : 

Dated Olympia, W. T., 5. Nov - 5 > 1885 ' 

To John H. McGraw, Sheriff, Seattle, W. T. 

I have just received following dispatch from the government : 
The issuance of your proclamation receives unqualified appro- 
bation. Follow it up with vigorous measures of precaution, 
and prevent violence, and federal interference not to be used 
except in case of extreme necessity. The extra expense of 
such local force as you may have to use I will recommend to 
be defrayed by Federal Government : 

(Signed) L. Q. 0. LAMAR, Sec'y. 

You will govern yourself accordingly, using Territorial 
military organizations when necessary. 

WATSON 0. SQUIRE, Governor. 

I incurred an expense of f 1,162.24 in the purchase of arms 
and ammunition necessary to arm and equip the citizens who 
had volunteered to act as my deputies. 

On the night of November 7th a public mass meeting was 
held under the auspices of the anti-Chinese agitators and being 
apprehensive that a disturbance might be precipitated in con- 
sequence of said meeting, and before the troops then expected 
could arrive, I caused my deputies to assemble under arms 
at the court house, and held them ready to act in case of an 
emergency during that night. The militia companies under 
Captains Green and Haines also at my request remained under 
arms during the night. On the morning of November 8th 
the 14th U. S. Infantry, under command of Lieut. Col. De- 
Russy, accompanied by your Excellency, arrived in Seattle, 
and thereupon all apprehension of an immediate disturbance 
subsided. 

At the time of the occurrence above narrated between four 
and five hundred Chinese persons were living in this county; 

57 



and I am now convinced from the facts I have stated and 
subsequent events that but for the measures adopted as above 
mentioned, and the determination shown by a large number 
of the citizens of this county to suppress any riotous or un- 
lawful demonstration against the Chinese, the Tacoma out- 
rage would have been repeated here. 

During the time the troops remained here, upon the sug- 
gestion of Brigadier- General Gibbon, between three and four 
hundred who had volunteered to act as my deputies were 
organized into three separate military companies to render 
them more efficient in case their services should be required 
after the troops should be withdrawn. These companies were 
armed in part with the guns purchased by me as above stated, 
which were Winchester rifles and double-barrelled shotguns, 
and in part with similar weapons belonging to the men them- 
selves. 

During the month of November fifteen of the leading agita- 
tors were indicted for conspiracy to deprive the Chinese of 
the equal protection of the laws and equal rights under the 
laws, under the Act of Congress known as the Ku Klux Act. 
After a protracted trial, which was ably conducted by C. H. 
Hanford, Assistant U. S. Attorney, the fifteen were all, on 
the 16th day of January, 1886, acquitted. I rendered such 
assistance as I could consistently with my position to the 
United States officers in the prosecution of this case. In 
defending themselves on this trial, the leading agitators all 
testified that no violence, breach of the peace, or unlawful 
act was intended or would be countenanced by them. They 
one and all protested their innocence, just as the Chicago 
bomb-throwers have recently protested. This line of defense, 
and the acquittal consequent upon it, served to allay appre- 
hension of danger in the public mind, and the citizens once 
more in fancied security ceased to heed the movements of the 
agitators, and devoted themselves to their private concerns, 
while the idle, transient population continued to agitate and 
devise plans for mischief; until the night of the 6th of Feb- 
ruary, at which time their plans for action were matured 
and final preparations made at a public mass meeting, which 

58 



was held under the management of several of the defendants 
in the conspiracy trial, together with a Socialist from Tacoma 
named M. P. Bulger. 

On Sunday morning, February 7th, about 9 o'clock, a mes- 
senger came to me and informed me that the Chinese were 
being forced from their homes and driven to the steamship 
Queen of the Pacific, to be transported to San Francisco. I 
immediately went to the Chinese quarter of town, and there 
I saw groups of men in and about different Chinese houses 
assisting in packing up the goods and effects of the Chinese 
and loading them on to express wagons, and met squads of 
Chinamen going towards the wharf, each squad being under 
the escort of three or four white men, followed by a rabble. 
The mob which I found in possession of the streets at this 
time I estimate numbered fifteen hundred, composed of the 
discontented element in Seattle, reinforced by delegations 
from Tacoma, Portland and other places. The Chief of Police 
was at the time disabled, and unable to attend to his official 
duties. The acting chief informed me that he was unable, 
with the small number of officers under him to disperse the 
mob or do anything more than endeavor to check wanton de- 
struction of the property and effects of the Chinese. I at 
this time ordered the mob to disperse ; but with no other effect 
than to call forth jeers from the crowd. I then informed 
some of the leaders that I would not permit them to carry 
out their designs of forcibly expelling the Chinese from Seattle, 
and proceeded at once to gather together my deputies and the 
armed military companies. Upon the issuance of your procla- 
mation commanding the mob to disperse, one of my armed 
companies attended the United States Attorney and Deputy 
U. S. Marshal as guard while they read the said proclamation 
publicly in the streets, and in the midst of a turbulent crowd, 
who jeered and hooted defiantly while it was being read. 

This outbreak was entirely unexpected at the time of its 
occurrence by all the people except those engaged in it, and 
consequently those upon whom I relied for assistance were, 
for the most part, not prepared to respond to the alarm given 
very quickly, and several hours were consumed in gathering 

59 



and forming the different military organizations which I have 
before mentioned ; but I wish to have it recorded to the credit 
of the people of Seattle that these men did rally with as 
much promptness as under the circumstances should have 
been expected, and that they were thenceforth steadfast and 
unflinching in the performance of every duty assigned them, 
and obedient to the orders given them. 

While the companies were being formed I went on board 
the Queen of the Pacific and interviewed a large number of 
the Chinese then on board of her who had been expelled from 
their houses by the mob, and I ascertained that they had 
been furnished with passage tickets by a committee of the 
anti-Chinese agitators, and that only those who were in pos- 
session of tickets for their passage had been admitted on 
board of the ship. I estimate that from eighty to ninety 
were then on board of the ship, and about two hundred others 
were then congregated upon the dock; and a number of indi- 
viduals were then going through town collecting more money 
to pay the fare of those to whom tickets had not been fur- 
nished. I informed the Chinese on the ship that they would 
not be obliged to leave Seattle, and that all who wished to 
remain would be allowed to go ashore and that they would 
be protected. Many of them expressed a desire to take ad- 
vantage of the free tickets which had been furnished them to 
go to San Francisco. Others preferred to remain in Seattle, 
but were undecided whether to go or stay. 

During the afternoon of that day a writ of habeas corpus 
was issued by the District Court to the master of the steam- 
ship requiring him to bring before the Court the Chinese per- 
sons then on board of his vessel who were alleged to be unlaw- 
fully deprived of their liberty. The said writ was placed in 
my hands, and was by me immediately served upon Captain 
E. Alexander, master of the steamship. 

At 7 o'clock the same evening Captain Alexander made a 
return to the writ alleging that by reason of the mob in the 
streets he was unable to produce his Chinese passengers be- 
fore the Court. Thereupon the hearing of the case was post- 
poned until 8 o'clock the next morning, and I was ordered by 

60 



the Court to assist the captain with whatever force should be 
necessary to bring said Chinese into Court. The several mili- 
tary companies and my deputies were kept on duty all night. 
During that afternoon and night I placed and maintained an 
armed guard around all the Chinese houses in the city. And 
during the night I placed a strong force in charge of the dock 
where the Chinese were congregated, which force at daylight 
next morning under my command escorted all Chinese then 
upon the dock, as well as those who had been received on board 
the steamer to the Court House, and remained as guard around 
the Court House during the hearing of the case; which re- 
sulted in a determination of a few of the Chinese to remain 
in Seattle. The larger portion of them, however, deciding to 
go to San Francisco on the ship, in consideration of the free 
passage offered them by the committee before mentioned. I 
then, with the men acting under my command, escorted all 
the Chinese back to the dock, as they all had their personal 
effects and baggage there, and we remained as a guard upon 
the wharf until the sailing of the vessel at about 12 o'clock. 
The vessel carried away one hundred and ninety-three Chinese 
passengers. Others wished to go, but the vessel was unable 
to take them, having reached the limit of her capacity as a 
carrier of passengers under the laws of the United States. 
From ninety to one hundred Chinese were left upon the wharf 
with their baggage and effects. And after it had been agreed 
between myself and some of those who had been officiating 
as a committee of the anti-Chinese element that these Chinese 
persons who were thus necessarily left by the ship would be 
allowed peaceably to return to their dwellings they started 
to do so, but were intercepted by several hundred of the mob 
who attempted to turn the procession of Chinese in the direc- 
tion of the railroad depot. This movement of the mob was 
prevented by a company of my deputies under Captain George 
Kinnear being quickly advanced in front of the Chinese and 
thereupon the crowd made an attack upon the guards and 
attempted to seize and wrench from them their guns. During 
the struggle which ensued several shots were exchanged be- 
tween the guards and the mob, resulting in the killing of one 

61 



of the assailants and the wounding of two others, and in 
the wounding of one of the special police officers of the city 
there on duty. The other military companies very quickly 
came to the support of Captain Kinnear, and the crowd ceased 
to struggle, although they refused to disperse, after being 
commanded to do so by me. The Chinese then went to their 
houses without further molestation. The attention of the 
angry crowd having been diverted from them to the citizen 
soldiers whose determination to maintain the laws of the 
land even at the price of their lives, if necessary, had now 
become manifest to all. And in my judgment the determi- 
nation of the mob to resume hostilities and to seek revenge 
by again attacking the men who were acting under my orders 
was equally manifest. I therefore determined to await an 
attack rather than to disperse the mob in the streets by 
attacking them. 

I therefore caused the several companies to be marched 
to the Court House as a place of rendezvous, and immediately 
afterwards placed sentinels in the principal thoroughfares of 
the city. About this time your Excellency proclaimed mar- 
tial law in the City of Seattle, and assumed military com- 
mand of the city, and my authority and responsibility in the 
premises as Sheriff of the county ceased, and thereafter the 
citizens who had acted under me continued to serve under 
the immediate command of your Excellency, and remained 
on duty day and night until they were relieved by the arrival 
of the 14th U. S. Infantry on the 11th of February. 

On the morning of the 8th a warrant was issued by one 
of the Justices of the Peace of the city for the arrest of a 
number of the leading rioters on a charge of riot, and several 
of them were arrested by my deputies and held to bail by 
the Justice previous to the proclamation of martial law. 

The party of Chinese who left Seattle on the Queen of the 
Pacific on the 8th of February, included only those who mani- 
fested a desire to go, and appeared to go voluntarily. Those 
who remained included all who stated in Court that they 
wished to remain in Seattle, and also some others who expressed 

62 



a desire to go ; and some of them did go, voluntarily, very soon 
afterwards. 

The expenses of this affair, amounting in the aggregate to 
a large sum, and including the amount expended in the pur- 
chase of arms and ammunition, has been paid by King County, 
and a claim for reimbursement will be made against the 
United States. And inasmuch as the general Government has 
by its treaty with China obligated itself to afford protection 
to Chinese residing in this country, it would seem to me that 
the claim of the County is just, and should be paid. 

And besides, whatever expenditures I have made since No- 
vember 5th were made in the belief that your telegram to me 
quoting that of the Hon. Secretary of the Interior, warranted 
me in expecting that the United States would assume and pay 
all reasonable expenses incurred by the local authorities in 
affording protection to the Chinese. 

My own time and labor, and that of my deputies, and the 
citizens who volunteered to assist me has been given without 
other compensation than the satisfaction derived from the 
consciousness that we were doing what at the time seemed 
necessary in support of a Government worthy of our services. 

(Signed) JOHN H. McGRAW, 
Sheriff of King County, W. T. 

Martial law prevailed in Seattle for a period of two weeks 
but a part of the Fourteenth infantry remained until the last 
indication of any purpose to molest the Chinese had van- 
ished. The community continued, however, to be divided into 
factions until a time subsequent to the elections for city and 
county officers in the year 1886. Those who held, allegiance 
to the constitution and obedience to law, to be the test of 
good citizenship, organized a "Law and Order League" 
pledged to insist upon the strict and impartial enforcement 
of all laws national as well as local. On that platform they 
campaigned in 1886 with men of the highest character as can- 
didates for the city and county officers. They were defeated 
by the superior numbers of the insurgents of that time, who 
were followers of orators who made the campaign denounc- 
ing martial law and "moon-eyed, rat-eating, pig-tailed mon- 



golians." McGraw was defeated for re-election as Sheriff, 
but, overwhelming political waves like tidal waves on the 
sea shore recede quickly. The people of King County became 
sane again and elected McGraw Sheriff at the first subsequent 
opportunity. 

During the interval while he was temporarily out of office 
he was admitted to the bar and practiced law as a member of 
the firms successively of Greene, Hanford and McGraw; and 
Greene, McNaught, Hanford and McGraw, and during the 
same period by judiciously buying and selling Seattle real 
estate, he acquired property which in time increased in value 
so as to constitute a competence in addition to providing the 
funds necessary to save him from complete ruin as I will 
presently explain. His acquisitions of property included stock 
in the First National Bank of Seattle of which institution 
he became president. 

By the laws of Washington Territory, Sheriffs of the dif- 
ferent Counties were ex-oflficio collectors of delinquent taxes. 
During the period of McGraw's incumbency in the office of 
Sheriff of King County prior to 1887, he made good use of 
his business education by personally keeping a set of books 
of account covering all of his official transactions in which 
he carefully entered every item pertaining to tax collections. 
For his pains he was given an absolute clearance from lia- 
bility after he had surrendered the office to his successor and 
after the business of the County had been experted. His later 
experiences connected with his second incumbency in the office 
were painfully different. The business of the Sheriff's office 
was reorganized with a special deputy charged with respon- 
sibility for tax collections and the keeping of accounts. At 
the end of the term an expert accountant was employed to 
check up and balance the Sheriff's accounts. He spent three 
months in that work and his report was accepted by the County 
Commissioners and McGraw settled by paying into the treasury 
the full amount of the balance reported to be due, which he 
and all concerned believed to be the true balance. Several 
years afterwards the County Commissioners authorized a pro- 
fessional accountant to ransack the records of any and all 

64 



officials who had been concerned in handling public money 
and made a contract with him by which he was to receive as 
compensation for his work, a percentage of all money which 
should be recovered as a result of his discoveries of defalca- 
tions. Near the close of McGraw's term of office as Governor 
of the State, that accountant reported to the County Commis- 
sioners that he had discovered a deficit of f 10,000 in McGraw's 
account as tax collector during his last term in the office of 
Sheriff. McGraw was stunned and disheartened for a time by 
the eagerness with which some of the newspapers seized upon 
the report and seemed to delight in sensational denunciation 
of the Governor of the State, as though he were a convicted 
thief. The country was then just beginning to recover from 
the financial panic of 1893. How to meet a sudden demand 
for immediate restitution of a large sum of money was a 
difficult problem. The expert accountant who made the re- 
port which was the basis of settlement after the expiration 
of McGraw's term of office, had died so that his explanation 
of the accounts was unobtainable. Whether the accountant 
who worked for a contingent fee juggled the figures so as to 
produce a fictitious balance, or whether McGraw's deputy, who 
transacted the business, was guilty of embezzlement has never 
been proved. McGraw decided to make no contest and with 
the aid of a few stanch friends an arrangement was made with 
the County Commissioners, pursuant to which he conveyed all 
of his property to a trustee authorized to convert any part or 
all of it into money to be paid into the County treasury to an 
amount sufficient to make up the shortage claimed. This was 
done and the trustee afterwards reconveyed the surplus. 

I have said that Governor McGraw was a well educated 
man. His mind was quick to perceive and he had a retentive 
memory, and being a constant reader of history and the best 
literature his mind was stored with a fund of knowledge which 
he made good use of. His study of history and the progress 
of civilization in all ages and countries, taught him that com- 
merce is one of the chief factors in the up-building of great 
cities and the expansion of national power, and that commerce 
responds to friendly solicitation and flourishes most in those 

65 



places where it finds the best facilities for the rapid and 
economical handling of traffic. Therefore he took a states- 
man's view of the importance to our State and Nation of the 
natural advantages of Puget Sound as a gateway of commerce 
and of the importance of improving the harbor of Seattle so 
as to make it the equal of, or superior to the greatest harbor 
of the world, and he became an earnest and leading advocate 
of the scheme of connecting Lake Washington and Lake Union 
with tide water by a ship canal. That project became a sub- 
ject of political controversy and under the dominating influ- 
ence and energy of McGraw and his supporters the Republican 
nominating convention of 1892 adopted a platform containing 
a declaration in favor of an appropriation by the National 
Government to construct that canal with locks. His posi- 
tion with respect to that project together with the record which 
he had made in other campaigns as a man of sagacity, force 
and executive ability directed the attention of the nominating 
convention to him as being the strongest available candidate 
for the office of Governor of the State, and he was ac- 
cordingly nominated. He made a thorough canvass of the 
State, addressing audiences in every locality, gaining confi- 
dence, friends and support by his personal efforts, and was 
elected and performed the duties of that high office with 
honor and benefit to the State during the term intervening 
from 1893 to 1897, which in a financial point of view was the 
darkest period in the history of our country susbequent to 
the Civil War. An active, intelligent mind, strong will and 
practical good sense were necessary to enable the chief execu- 
tive of the State to administer its affairs in a way to avoid 
disaster. These qualities the Governor possessed, of which 
there is ample proof. It has frequently happened in our 
country that scandals have been developed in connection with 
the erection of public buildings, through combinations of 
architects, contractors and corrupt officials. An attempt to 
inflict one of those scandals upon our State was made during 
Governor McGraw's term, taking advantage of an act of the 
Legislature authorizing the erection of a State Capitol build- 
ing at Olympia with a limit of cost of $1,000,000. A large 

66 



number of architects submitted plans for the proposed Capitol 
building. Power to select from the number and adopt a plan 
was vested in a Board of Capitol Commissioners consisting of 
five members. Information was communicated to the Gover- 
nor confidentially that a conspiracy had been formed between 
a majority of the members of the board and an eastern archi- 
tect and a syndicate of other individuals to perpetrate a fraud 
upon the State by the adoption of a plan for the Capitol sub- 
mitted by the architect referred to, and the awarding of the 
contract to the syndicate. To thwart the conspirators, the 
Governor wisely insisted upon submission of all the different 
plans submitted to an architect of national reputation, and the 
obtaining of his estimate as an expert of their respective 
merits. Accordingly an architect of pre-eminent ability and 
reputation was engaged, he examined all of the plans, and 
condemned all of them, except six which he recommended the 
board to consider and make a selection from. The plan in- 
tended for adoption by the conspirators, was among the con- 
demned and when the secret information communicated to the 
Governor was confirmed, by the dogged obstinacy of three 
members of the board in insisting upon adoption of that plan, 
the Governor did not hesitate to exercise his power to change 
the personnel of the board in time to save the State from 
pecuniary loss and disgrace. Again he was stung by gross 
slanders circulated at the instigation of the defeated conspira- 
tors. In a church in Chicago a minister of the gospel in a 
sermon stated, as though it were a fact, that the Governor 
received the sum of f 50,000 as a bribe and inducement for 
his action in preventing the adoption of a plan for a Capitol 
building favored by a majority of the Board of Capitol 
Commissioners. 

With courage, tact and a patriotic sense of duty, the Gov- 
ernor handled conditions difficult to deal with, which were 
consequences of hard times, and of the presence within the 
State of considerable numbers of unemployed laborers who at 
one time were organized to join other organized forces of un- 
employed laborers under the leadership of General Coxey to 
assemble as a body at the National Capitol. Serious disasters 

67 



were threatened in connection with strikes of employees of 
the railroad companies and coal miners. The Governor bravely 
met all emergencies and preserved peace and order and ren- 
dered valuable assistance in settling disputes between em- 
ployers and employees. At the close of his term of office as 
Governor, all of McGraw's property was in the hands of a 
trustee as I have stated. He had no business nor employment 
to yield an income, and his health was greatly impaired. A 
few months later when news of the extraordinary discoveries 
of precious metal in the region then known as Klondike, elec- 
trified the country, McGraw borrowed a little money for the 
necessities of his family and to provide an outfit for the jour- 
ney, and went to Alaska where he remained two years. He 
met with but indifferent success there in his quest for fortune 
but the journey and the time spent were fully compensated 
for by his restoration to robust health. 

When he returned to Seattle in 1899, Seattle was prosper- 
ing and he at once commenced a successful business career 
in which he continued until stricken with the fever which 
terminated his life on the 23rd day of June, 1910. It was 
during this time that he became best known as a useful citizen, 
for all of his time was not devoted to his own affairs. He 
was liberal in contributing time and earnest in endeavor to 
promote all public welfare projects. His neighbors and fellow 
citizens depended upon him and continually called for his help 
when a strong, able man was needed, and in many important 
matters he acted upon his own initiative. He was for several 
years the efficient president of the Seattle Chamber of Com- 
merce and when the commercial bodies of the cities of the 
Pacific Coast combined to form an association to work in com- 
bination for the general good of the States bordering on the 
Pacific Ocean, he was chosen as the first president of the Asso- 
ciated Chambers of Commerce of the Pacific. He was a mem- 
ber of the executive committee and one of the vice-presidents 
of the Alaska- Yukon-Pacific Exposition, and devoted much 
of his time and energy endeavoring to promote the success 
of that exposition. He was the first president of a corpora- 
tion organized at Seattle to develop the great water power 

68 



of Priest Eapids and convert a large arid district on the west 
side of the Columbia River into a fertile and wealth-producing 
region by means of irrigation. At the time of his death he 
was president of the Rainier Club of Seattle and an active 
member of the Board of Overseers of Whitman College, zealous 
in its service and hopeful for the success of efforts being made 
to plant the college on a foundation which shall insure its 
position as the educational center of the three great States of 
the Northwest. 

Ever active and energetic, Governor McGraw's life was 
marked by many conflicts. He was vigorous in meeting and 
contending against opposition and although he was often tra- 
duced and misrepresented, he was personally popular through- 
out the State of Washington and well beloved by a host of ad- 
mirers. His friends do not claim that he was, and he did not 
pretend to be, faultless, he was self-conscious of his powers and 
ability, and also of his faults and limitations, and being thus 
self-conscious he was fortified to assume responsibilities and to 
act with courage and intelligence, and his character was also 
ennobled by charity and modesty and he was stimulated to en- 
deavor for self-improvement. He rejected offers of support 
which probably would have placed him in the position of a 
United States Senator, where his abilities would have com- 
manded recognition of him as one among the leading states- 
men of our time. He desired not additional political prefer- 
ment, his highest ambition being to occupy the position of an 
American citizen in private life and to be a useful citizen. 



69 



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to ?4*lp <©%ra 

$jj Ebrnnno &. Tirana 

IFantlty of Itnibrruttii of OTasljington 

Address delivered before Seattle Chamber of Commerce, 
June 28, 1910. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Seattle Chamber of Com- 
merce •' 

In rising to second Mr. Crawford's motion to construct a 
monument in his memory, I bring you a message from a walk 
of life somewhat different from your own. 

When a good man dies, thoughtful survivors find a tender 
solace for their grief in calling up from the past words or 
incidents that characterized the life just ended. We are now 
witnessing a splendid example of this natural human tendency 
in the multiplied tributes to the memory of John H. McGraw. 

In humbleness of spirit I wish to add a tribute, confident 
that it will relieve my own sense of sorrow to speak frankly 
to my fellow man on this occasion and hopeful that the words 
will find an echo in the hearts of others. 

From early boyhood my life has been closely tied to the 
University of Washington. Pack in Territorial days I remem- 
ber working as a freshman in the little closet of a room called 
the University Library. There were scarcely one thousand 
volumes in all and still I found one large series of the volumes 
had been given to the Library by John H. McGraw. He was 
then a policeman. 

Fifteen years later I had the pleasure of seeing him, as 
Governor, approve the act of the Legislature reorganizing the 
institution, giving it a new campus of three hundred and fifty- 
five acres, providing money for the new buildings, safe-guarding 
the old campus in the center of Seattle, providing a large en- 
dowment of one hundred thousand acres of granted lands, and, 
what he particularly enjoyed, making tuition free for the boys 
and girls of Washington. 

70 



Before, since, and during his term as Governor, John H. 
McGraw found many ways to manifest an intelligent, earnest, 
and efficient interest in the University. During one campaign 
I was waited upon by the party manager and told that the 
members of the faculty were to be assessed for political pur- 
poses. I did not know the party affiliations of the professors 
but I did know that they were all finding it difficult to subsist 
on their small salaries. In anguish I went to Governor Mc- 
Graw. I do not wish to recall his exact words. They were 
emphatic. In substance they were: "You tell the campaign 
committee that my orders are to keep their hands off the educa- 
tional institutions of this State." I delivered those orders and 
I am glad to say that from that day to this no campaign com- 
mittee of any party has tried to assess the members of the 
University faculty. 

But this kindly man took especially keen delight in helping 
young people to obtain good educational training, a thing he 
had missed in his own boyhood. No one will ever know how 
many he helped. I am sure there are enough of them to rear 
this monument if left to them alone. One day, while he was 
Sheriff of King County, he stopped a red-haired, freckle-faced 
boy carrying newspapers on the street. Putting his hand on 
the boy's shoulder he said : 

"Young man, I knew your father. I was very sorry when 
he was drowned in the Skagit River. I have heard something 
of your struggles to keep in school while taking care of your 
mother, sister, and baby brother. What I want to say now 
is that I want you to feel free to call on me if you need a 
friend for any purpose whatever." 

The boy could not speak. With tears streaming from his 
eyes, he hurried on with his papers, but he was no longer a 
boy. His life was changed. The young man knew from that 
hour that there was a big, strong, purposeful man, who was 
not only his well-wisher, but his earnest and aggressive friend. 
That friendship, tested and secure, endured till one, on last 
Saturday, saw the other pass through the tomb. 

I was that newsboy. 

For many years I have been studying and teaching history 

71 



with all the strength I can command. Whatever of success 
I may have achieved in this work, I feel that none of it is 
anywhere near as valuable as the results of my constant efforts 
to be the friend, the elder brother, to every student with whom 
I come in contact. 

I cannot analyze myself as well as another might, but it 
seems that all my life I have felt on my shoulder the hand of 
John H. McGraw and I have heard for all these years the 
words in which he pledged his friendship. I hope I have been 
as kind to some other struggling boy. 

Gladly, Mr. President, do I second the motion that we rear 
in this city a monument to the memory of John H. McGraw. 



72 




Reproduced from photograph taken while Governor of the State of Washington 



Snbutw txxfo (HammmtB frnm battle TKm&ptxpnB 



Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 24, 1910. 

"The state has lost a loyal citizen and a hard worker for the com- 
mon good." — Gov. Hay. 

"He carried this commonwealth through one of its most trying periods. 
He was one of our greatest public men." — Former Gov. Mead. 

John H. McGraw, second governor of Washington, who presided 
over the state's destinies from 1893 to 1897, died at 6:45 last evening 
at his home, 1104 First Avenue North. 

The struggle with death, extending over nearly four months, ended 
peacefully. He remained unconscious through the forty-eight hours 
preceding the end. 

Family at Bedside 

With him at his bedside when he passed away were his daughter, 
Mrs. Fred Hudson Baxter; his son, Mark T. McGraw, and his nephew, 
Dr. Eugene R. Kelley, who had been in almost constant attendance 
upon him from the first of his illness. Fred Hudson Baxter, Mrs. 
Sutcliffe Baxter, Mr. Baxter's mother; Mrs. Mark T. McGraw and his 
two grandchildren, Harriet Baxter and John Baxter, were also present. 

History of Illness 

Gov. McGraw was first attacked with neuralgia, for which he 
went to the springs for treatment. On his return, a fortnight later, 
he was no better, and his physicians, Dr. George M. Horton and Dr. 
Kelley, discovered what they believed was septic poisoning. Later 
typhoid fever developed, and this was accompanied by severe chills 
at night, making the case an unusual one. 

Makes a Good Fight 

Through it all Gov. McGraw battled with the energy of a man 
of strong will, and showed the qualities that had characterized him 
throughout his career of almost sixty years. 

Dr. Horton and Dr. Kelley finally called in consultation Dr. L. R. 
Dawson and Dr. Edward P. Fick, and typhoid germs were extracted 
from the patient's blood, with which he was later inoculated. After 
this experiment Governor McGraw showed signs of improvement, but 
later suffered a relapse, and for more than a fortnight hovered between 
life and death. 

73 



Asks Private Funeral 

He waged his determined struggle against the complications that 
set in until about three weeks ago, when he called in a few business 
associates and announced to them that he realized that his end was 
near, and that it was his wish that he be given no public funeral, 
but that he be buried privately and without any show of ostentation. 

Was Advocate of Canal 

The death of the former governor comes at a time when the 
building of the Lake Washington Canal seems about to be realized. 
This project he favored from the beginning of his public career. It 
was the chief plank in the platform upon which he was elected gov- 
ernor. He never relaxed his efforts, in season or out of season, to 
further the accomplishment of that ambition. His last public service 
was rendered in its behalf, when he went to Washington, early in 
the year, and advocated before the committee on rivers and harbors 
the appropriation recently authorized by congress, which assures the 
construction of a lock at Salmon Bay. 

Many Anxious Inquiries 

It is doubtful if the sickness of any man in the public life of 
the State has excited more anxious inquiries than the illness of Gov. 
McGraw. From the beginning the esteem in which he was held and 
the popularity enjoyed by him was manifested in the sincere expres- 
sions of good will that were expressed for him from all over the State. 

And these inquiries in numberless instances came from those with 
whom he had differed politically, but who recognized in him a man 
of worth and a fighter who never regretted any struggle in which 
he participated. 

Funeral Tomorrow 

The funeral service, which will be simple and in accordance with 
his expressed wish, will be held from the home tomorrow afternoon 
at 2 o'clock, and will be attended only by the immediate family and 
intimate friends of the former governor. The body will be cremated. 

Rev. W. A. Major, pastor of the Bethany Presbyterian Church, 
will officiate at the home, and on Sunday afternoon at 1:30 a public 
memorial service will be held in the First Presbyterian Church. 

The Chamber of Commerce, the Manufacturers' Association, the 
Mercantile Association and the Charity's Indorsement Committee, will 
suspend their activities today, and remain closed until after the 
funeral. The Strawberry Festival, being held in the Chamber of 
Commerce, will be discontinued. 

Born in poverty and obscurity, John H. McGraw became clerk in 
a little country store, then its proprietor. Unable to withstand the 
fierce panic of '73, and compelled to abandon the general merchandise 

74 



business in which, with an older brother, he embarked three years 
before, he came to the Pacific Coast, worked as a horse-car driver in 
San Francisco, and then, drifting to Seattle, became in turn hotel 
clerk, hotel proprietor, policeman, city marshal and chief of police, 
sheriff, bank president and governor of his adopted State. 

John Harte McGraw, son of Daniel and Catherine (Harte) Mc- 
Graw, was born at Barker Plantation, Penobscot County, Me., near the 
Canadian border, October 4, 1850. 

When he was a little more than 2 years old his father was 
drowned in the Penobscot River. His mother was left with three 
small children, and, as Governor McGraw often expressed it, "poverty 
in abundance." 

Left Home at Fourteen 

When McGraw was 8 years old his mother married a second time. 
When he was 14 years old he left home because of a disagreement 
with his step-father, and thereafter he was compelled to rely upon 
his own exertions. His scant education was acquired at a few terms' 
attendance at a country school, but in spite of all disadvantages he 
succeeded in maintaining himself, and at 17 he was given employ- 
ment as a clerk in a general merchandise store. 

There he remained for three years, although it does not appear 
to have engrossed him entirely, for he was married October 12, 1874. 

During the winter of the following year the firm of McGraw 
Brothers succumbed to the business depression that followed the panic 
of '73, and John H. McGraw was once more thrown upon his own 
resources. After this reverse he determined to set out for the Pacific 
Coast. 

San Francisco was his objective point when he left the Pine Tree 
State. There he arrived July 10, 1876, and for the next few months 
he worked as a horse-car driver in that city. 

It was a casual acquaintance he met who induced and assisted 
him to come north to Seattle, and he arrived in this city December 
28, 1876. For the ensuing several months he was employed as a clerk 
at the Occidental Hotel. 

During the next year, however, he became one of the lessees of 
the American House, a small hotel located near Yesler's Wharf, and 
he conducted the business of that hotel until the building was de- 
stroyed by fire in 1878. 

Joins Seattle Police 

With this last reverse a more favorable current set in. He 
solicited and obtained a position on the police force of Seattle, which 
then consisted of four men. He served one year in this latter capacity, 
and in July, 1879, he was elected city marshal by the people, and 
chosen by the city council as chief of police. 

75 



He continued to fill these offices by annual re-election until Feb- 
ruary, 1882, when he was elected sheriff of King County to fill the 
unexpired term of L. V. Wyckoff. He was re-elected to this position 
in November, 1882, and again two years later. 

During his third term as sheriff occurred the anti-Chinese agi- 
tation, with its accompanying disturbances of the peace. He promptly 
made known his intention to uphold the laws and maintain the 
peace of the county at any cost, and for this stand he incurred the 
hostility of those who sympathized with agitation in its lawless phase, 
and when he was nominated for re-election in November, 1886, he 
was defeated, together with all the other candidates who had been 
nominated for county offices by his party. 

Admitted to the Bar 

During his occupancy of the office of sheriff he had devoted much 
of his time to the study of the law and was admitted to the bar. Shortly 
after his retirement to private life he formed a partnership, in March, 
1887, with Roger S. Greene, who had formerly been chief justice of 
Washington Territory, and C. H. Hanford, at present United States 
District Judge for the District of Washington, and began the practice 
of law. 

Later Joseph P. McNaught entered the firm, and the firm name 
of Greene, Hanford & McGraw became Greene, Hanford, McNaught 
& McGraw. 

His active practice of the law, however, covered less than two 
years, for as the election of 1888 approached his friends insisted that 
he should once more become a candidate for sheriff. They urged that 
it was necessary for him to do this in order that the people might 
have an opportunity to show that in their calmer moments they ap- 
proved of his course during the anti-Chinese riots, which, by his 
former defeat, they had appeared to condemn. 

He accordingly consented to become a candidate for the office, 
and was elected by a big majority. 

During this latter term the county was undisturbed by riot or 
agitation, and nobody had the slightest criticism to make upon Mr. 
McGraw's official course when he refused to become a candidate for 
re-election in 1890, and retired to become president of the First Na- 
tional Bank, of which institution he had some months before been 
chosen president. 

Still Active in Politics 

Meanwhile he continued his activity in Republican politics. He 
had been a member of the State Central Committee for several years, 
and the chairmanship of that was strongly urged upon him by a 
majority of the delegates to the State Convention of 1890. This posi- 
tion he refused to accept. 

76 



In the contest for United States Senator in 1891 he was the 
central figure. He led the forces in favor of the re-election of Senator 
Watson C. Squire, and to his faithful and intelligent leadership the 
success of Senator Squire was in a large measure due. 

Mr. McGraw's exertions during this memorable conflict for United 
States Senator greatly undermined his health, and he was ordered 
by his physicians to go to California that his health might be 
restored. 

Honored by Friends 

A few days before his departure he was presented by his fellow 
Republicans of Seattle a magnificent silver service in acknowledge- 
ment of his services to the Republican party. In referring to this 
presentation the Post-Intelligencer, on the following morning, Feb- 
ruary 5, 1891, said editorially: 

"The presentation made to Mr. John H. McGraw last evening by a 
number of his Republican friends was a heartfelt though necessarily 
inadequate expression of the honor in which he is held by his fellow 
citizens. More particularly an acknowledgement of his able, honor- 
able and successful leadership in the recent senatorial contest, it was 
none the less a tribute to his worth as a man and a citizen. 

"The present is a proper time to testify to the manner in which 
Senator Squire's canvass was conducted by Mr. McGraw. That his 
generalship was able, keen and resourceful, the result of the battle 
sufficiently attests. More than this, however, he was open and hon- 
orable in his methods, and he comes out of the fight with the respect 
and friendship of all fair-minded men — even of those who were among 
the supporters of the cause which he overthrew. Mr. McGraw, as a 
result, occupies an enviable position in the State of Washington." 

Chosen National Delegate 

His interest in politics still continued unabated. He was elected 
a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1892, and in the 
fall of that year was elected Governor of the State of Washington, 
and he served the four-year term, which commenced in January, 1893. 

He made the campaign for Governor on a purely local platform, 
the State having divided politically on the issue of indorsing the con- 
struction of the Lake Washington Canal, a project with which he has 
ever since been identified, and in advocacy of which before the Rivers 
and Harbors Committee of Congress early this year in Washington, 
D. C, he rendered his last public service. 

Stormy Term as Governor 

Gov. McGraw's administration was a stormy and tempestuous one. 
He stood for sound money, the enforcement of the State's contracts 
and the payment of the State's just debts. The politicians of his 

77 



own party embarrassed him by the passage of extravagant appropria- 
tion bills, which he promptly vetoed. He cut down other needed ap- 
propriations to amounts he knew the State was able to pay. The 
legislature finally passed a deficiency judgment bill, which would have 
defrauded the State's creditors, and that also was vetoed. 

Riots were threatened in Tacoma and elsewhere at the time Coxey's 
army started its march. Governor McGraw led both the State Militia 
and the Federal troops to suppress any attempt at violence. 

Settled Coal Strike 

During his administration there was a serious and prolonged 
strike in the coal mines in King and Pierce Counties. Several thou- 
sand men were involved. It had lasted nearly three months, with the 
usual incidents and progression toward serious trouble on both sides. 
The mines were owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad. The general 
manager one day notified the governor that on the following Tuesday 
he proposed to reopen the mines, in which there had been nothing 
done since the strike; that he expected at least one-third of the striking 
miners would return to work, and closed by saying, rather peremptorily, 
"Send us two companies of militia to protect our men." 

The governor took the next train to Cle Elum, where he met the 
general manager and the attorney for the road. The situation was 
fully discussed. When he left them they were notified that he in- 
tended visiting Roslyn, the strikers' headquarters, for a conference 
with the strikers. 

"We will go with you," the railroad men said. 

"No, thank you, I'll go alone," responded the Governor. 

A special train was then offered, and declined, the Governor saying 
a cayuse's back was good enough for him. And so he went, met the 
leaders of the strike, and went over the whole situation with them. 
They requested him not to send the militia. He called their attention 
to the length of the strike, how it had availed them nothing. He 
then told them that he understood from the company that at least 
one-third of the strikers wished to return to work, but were deterred 
from doing so by the leaders. 

Betired Poor From Office 

Closing the conference, the Governor said: 

"When the whistle blows for work on Tuesday, and a third of 
the men show a disposition to go back to work, I shall be prepared 
to defend them with the whole State militia, if necessary. If that 
is not enough I shall call on the President of the United States, in 
accordance with the Constitution, and I guess you know what Grover 
Cleveland will do in that case. I want to say another thing, and 
that is, what I have threatened will be done if there is just one man 
of you who wants to return to work." 

78 



The leaders went into conference, and returned almost immediately 
with the announcement that they were ready to return to work. 

Governor McGraw neglected his personal business during his term 
of office, and at its expiration he found himself one of the most abused 
men in the State, and virtually a bankrupt. His term as Governor 
expired in January, 1897. In August of that year the Klondike ex- 
citement became rampant, and the Governor borrowed money enough 
to take him to the Golden North, whither he went literally with a 
pack on his back and a pick and shovel in his hand. 

Paid Off All Debts 

On his first visit to Seattle from Alaska he walked into the 
office of Harold Preston and placed on the latter's desk a stack of 
bills and coin which, when counted, showed a total of $20,020. 

Picking a $20 gold piece from the pile, he put that in his pocket, 
and said: 

"Harold, I'll make this $20 last until I am able to get more. But 
I want you to pay my creditors." 

He did not "strike it rich" in Alaska, but he earned there a com- 
petence sufficient to enable him to return to Seattle and start in the 
real estate business, latterly under the firm name of McGraw, Kit- 
tinger & Case. Many former friends who admired his pluck, ability 
and integrity, placed business in his hands, and his return from 
Alaska in 1899 was followed by the payment of nearly $100,000 of 
debt, so that before his decease he had again become prosperous and 
was rapidly gaining in wealth. 

Governor McGraw more than supplied the deficiencies of his early 
education, said a biographer, and yet, in spite of his position of in- 
fluence and honor among the people of Washington, a request for a 
sketch of his life a short time ago brought forth this modest reply: 
"Of a career so barren of results, not much can truthfully be said." 

Honors in Later Life 

He married May L. Kelley in his boyhood home in Maine before 
coming to the Pacific Coast. She died about three years ago. He 
is survived by a son, Mark Thomas McGraw, who has been engaged 
in Alaska enterprises, and is now a Deputy United States Marshal, 
and a daughter, Kate Edna, wife of Fred Hudson Baxter. The latter 
couple lived with Governor McGraw in his beautiful home, 1104 First 
Avenue North, corner of Prospect Street, ever since the death of Mrs. 
McGraw. 

Governor McGraw was of Irish ancestry. He was a member of 
the Masonic fraternity, in which he had taken degrees of both York 
and Scottish rites, attaining the thirty-second degree of the latter. 
He was president of the Chamber of Commerce from 1905 to 1909, 

79 



was president of the Puget Sound Realty Associates, and a vice-presi- 
dent of the A.-Y.-P. Exposition. He was also at the time of his death 
president of the Rainier Club. 

With the death of Governor McGraw there passes the only one 
who stuck it out until the end of the famous "big four," who for sev- 
eral years absolutely dominated the Republican politics of the State 
of Washington. 

The "big four" comprised McGraw, Leigh Hunt, who went to the 
Orient and got rich; George H. Heilbron, who was fatally stricken 
with heart failure some years ago while taking a bath in his home, 
and Frederick J. Grant, who was lost aboard the ship Ivanhoe, which 
sailed from this port and was never heard from again. 



Prominent Men Pay Tribute to Worth of the Former Executive 

Governor M. E. Hay said last night: "Although the news of Gov- 
ernor McGraw's death was not unexpected, it came to me as a great 
shock. As Governor of the State of Washington I had naturally come 
into close touch with his work. It was not until the opening of the 
Alaska- Yukon-Pacific Exposition that I became closely acquainted with 
Governor McGraw, and I then learned to admire him greatly. His 
enthusiasm as a booster for Seattle and the entire State won my 
admiration. He neglected his personal business to make the expo- 
sition a success, and he was ever ready to point out to visitors the 
opportunities offered in the Pacific Northwest. The State has lost a 
loyal citizen and a hard worker for the common good." 

Message From President Taft 

Messages of condolence poured in all day from all over the country 
upon the stricken household, among them a telegram from President 
Taft, as follows: 

"I greatly regret to hear of the death of Governor McGraw. He 
was a most enterprising and respected friend of Seattle." 

From Speaker Cannon 

"I regret exceedingly to receive the news of the death of Governor 
McGraw, because his services to his State were efficient, honest and 
patriotic," was the message received from Speaker Cannon, of the 
National House of Representatives. 

Other Messages Received 

United States Senator William P. Frye, of Governor McGraw's 
native State of Maine, now in his eightieth year, who was serving 
the Republican party as chairman of the Maine Republican State 
Committee before Governor McGraw left for the Pacific Coast, also sent 
a message of sympathy to the bereaved family, as did Henry Wat- 

80 



terson, veteran editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, while among 
others heard from were United States Senators S. H. Piles and Wesley 
L. Jones, Governor M. E. Hay, Representatives William E. Humphrey 
and W. W. McCredie and Theodore Wilcox, of Portland, Ore. 

Plans for Funeral 

The funeral services to be held at the family home at 2 o'clock 
this afternoon will be reserved for the immediate family and intimate 
friends, as it was Governor McGraw's expressed wish that his funeral 
should not be made the occasion of any public display. 

Rev. W. A. Major, pastor of the Bethany Presbyterian Church, 
who officiated at the funeral of Mrs. McGraw three years ago, will per- 
form a similar service today. The body will be cremated. 

The Pallbearers 

The active pallbearers will be J. D. Lowman, F. W. Baker, S. L. 
Crawford, James D. Hoge, John Arthur, George Boole, C. B. Yandell, 
Maj. F. A. Boutelle, Edmond S. Meany, C. J. Smith. 

The honorary pallbearers selected are Judge C. H. Hanford, Judge 
Thomas Burke, Governor M. E. Hay, E. C. Hughes, Robert Moran 
Harvey W. Scott, editor of the Oregonian; A. J. Blethen; W. W, 
Robertson, of North Yakima; former United States Senator Levi 
Ankeny; former Governor Henry McBride; Mayor Hiram C. Gill; E. W 
Andrews, C. H. Clarke, Roger S. Greene; former Sheriff William Cach 
rane; Lester Turner, W. D. Wood, D. E. Frederick, Frank McDermott 
J. E. Chilberg, I. A. Nadeau, Judge George Donworth, C. J. Lord 
of Olympia; J. S. Brace, Charles W. Darr, M. A. Arnold, R. B 
Albertson, J. S. Goldsmith, Jacob Furth, M. F. Backus, City Engineer 
R. H. Thomson and J. M. Frink. 

Public Memorial Services 

Public memorial services will be held at 1:15 o'clock tomorrow 
afternoon in the First Presbyterian Church. The preliminary address 
will be delivered by Rev. M. A. Matthews, and testimonials by Judge 
C. H. Hanford, E. C. Hughes and Judge Thomas Burke will follow. 

The following commercial, social and civic organizations have 
signified a desire to participate in the memorial services through their 
trustees and boards of directors: 

Associations to Participate 

Seattle Chamber of Commerce; Rainier Club; Seattle Golf and 
Country Club; Arctic Club; Commercial Club; University Club; Man- 
ufacturers' Association; Seattle Merchants' Association; Seattle Clear- 
ing House; Seattle Real Estate Association; Seattle Athletic Club; 
Seattle Board of Underwriters; Lake Washington Canal Association; 
Masonic orders. 

81 



In addition reservation of seats will be made for a large number 
of intimate friends, and all the city and county officials. 

It is requested that all floral tributes be sent to the home and 
not the church. 



-o- 



By ALDEtf J. BLETHE1V 

Seattle Daily Times, June 24, 1910. 

After the ravages of twelve weeks of typhoid fever, the physical 
strength of John H. McGraw — former Governor of the State of Wash- 
ington — fell before that grim destroyer, Death — and his spirit passed to 
that land from whose bourne no traveler ever returns. 

Possibly no other citizen has closed his career in this great Com- 
monwealth since Statehood with as pronounced a character — a repu- 
tation for vigorous effort and devotion to the best interests of both 
City and State, as occurred when Governor McGraw closed his eyes 
in death, just as the sun was passing behind the Olympics yesterday 
evening in the clearest of all our summer skies. 

Born October 4, 1850, in the good old State of Maine, but spending 
all his manhood life in Seattle, except the four years of his career 
as Governor, which, under the law, made his residence Olympia — John 
H. McGraw presented to the people of this State one of the most 
remarkable careers ever wrought out by any man coming from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific Coast. 

With very limited opportunities for an early education, Governor 
McGraw passed through an experience in Washington that, by absorp- 
tion, afforded him an education broader than that which could have 
been obtained at Harvard or Yale in America, or the famous Oxford 
University of England. 

Indeed, the career of this man, whose "untimely taking off" will 
be regretted by every true citizen of the City and State, experienced 
a career more remarkable in detail than that which came into the 
life of any other public man carving out fame on the Pacific Coast 
since Marcus Whitman made it possible for Americans to develop the 
State of Washington by saving the "Oregon country" to the United 
States. Observe the experience: 

Coming to this country in his early youth, he assumed the position 
of an ordinary clerk — but made himself so useful to his employers that 
he was thought to be a member of the firm. 

Determined to learn the best methods of conducting municipal 
government, and going to the very bottom for information, John H. 
McGraw became a policeman — but he served with such faithfulness that 
he succeeded to the head of the department within a limited period. 

82 



Broadening out from his career as Chief of Police, he became 
Sheriff of King County, and filled the office so well that he was doubly- 
honored in the position. 

Passing at once into the politics of the Commonwealth, in 1892, 
John H. McGraw had become so favorably known that he was made 
Chief Executive of the State, and occupied the chair as Governor for 
a period of four years. 

It has been said by his intimate friends that he might have been 
one of the members of the United States Senate if he had so chosen 
— but he felt that that honor should go to others who had made him an 
equal combat for political preferment. 

Unfortunately the hard times, which were at their climax when 
Governor McGraw went out of office at the close of 1896, left him 
without property and without means to enter upon a business career 
such as he had expected to assume at the end of his political service 
to the State. 

Here again the characteristics of enterprise, perseverance and his 
magnificent ability to achieve results were demonstrated — for it was 
at the beginning of that epoch in the history when the gold fields 
of the North were about to empty their wealth into the lap of Seattle, 
and which has continued until more than two hundred million dollars' 
worth of the yellow metal has been received. 

John H. McGraw was then almost fifty years of age — and to face 
the rigors of Alaska and submit to the discomforts of the mining 
camp might have tested the courage of a man of less years. 

But it did not disturb Governor McGraw in the least — for he as 
deliberately outfitted himself for a two years' stay and went forth 
to reclaim his lost fortune with as much courage as he had under- 
taken his official positions during the twenty years prior to the day of 
his departure. 

Fortune smiled upon his efforts precisely as she does upon the 
efforts of all similar men — and at the end of two years Governor 
McGraw returned to his home, having been most successful in his 
hunt for gold, and was able at once to enter upon a most remarkable 
business career. 

So far as it lay within the power of the business men of this 
City to honor Governor McGraw in a civic way — all honors were 
heaped upon him. 

He was not only made President of the Chamber of Commerce 
repeatedly — but was always at the head of every important committee, 
especially if that committee were required to go before the Congress 
of the United States, Cabinet officers or even the President. 

In all undertakings in Seattle, whether of a receptive or an ex- 
ploitive character, Governor McGraw was always at the head — and 
never in any incident did he fail to render the highest service and 
secure the best results. 



His taking off was most untimely — for his physical strength, mental 
power and splendid intellectual development were all at their very 
zenith — and if he could have lived another decade no man in Seattle 
could have accomplished more for the City and State. 

No man of the vigorous and aggressive character possessed by 
Governor McGraw could possibly hew his way to personal success 
and at the same time fulfill the important missions which he under- 
took to the satisfaction of his people — without striking blows that nec- 
essarily made enemies. 

But it is fair to say that no man ever lived in Seattle who has 
been quicker to forget injuries — imagined or real — and extend the 
hand of cordial friendship than was the custom of John H. McGraw. 

The taking off of such a man with such characteristics and such 
a career necessarily creates regrets and heartburnings to an extent 
that the great public will never know — because those who feel the 
strongest and suffer the keenest are oftenest the most silent. 

It will not be improper, however, for the Editor of The Times, 
in closing this humble tribute to a great man, to say that the taking 
off of Governor McGraw causes the sincerest regrets — for the Editor 
had learned to know Governor McGraw most intimately — and to appre- 
ciate the splendid qualities of his character and his straightforward 
manliness. May his ashes rest in peace. 



84 



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